Case Studies of Communist Conquest Plans and Occupations in The Third World During The Cold War

1
Case Studies of Communist Conquest Plans and Occupations in the Third World
During the Cold War
By Nevin Gussack
Since the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the international communist movement sought
to impose its will through subversion, terrorism, and even outright military invasions. Tools such
as guerrilla peoples war were utilized by the communists as a means of taking power,
especially in political vacuums. Greece, Vietnam, China, British Malaya, and Cuba were some
examples of where the communists used peoples war to achieve their objective of seizing
power. One of the earliest communist peoples war of armed terrorists occurred in the wake of
the Axis withdrawal from Greece in 1944. Previously, resistance forces of royalist, republican, or
communist-dominated persuasions fought against the Nazis, Italians, and their brutal Greek
fascist and militarist collaborators. The Communist National Liberation Front (EAM) and its
military arm, the Peoples Army for National Liberation (ELAS) seemed to have gained the
upper hand in 1944 and 1945. The pro-Allied Greek anti-communist government received
assistance from the British and later the United States. The EAM was controlled by the Greek
Communist Party (KKE) and implemented totalitarian rule in their zones of occupation. The
secret police of the EAM called the Organization for the Protection of the Peoples Struggle
(OPLA) carried out an assassination campaign in the Peloponnese. One former EAM guerrilla
noted to Mark Mazower: I was not a regular guerrilla; I was a devils guerrilla. In August
1943, the EAM leadership in Peloponnese created a special organ to isolate at the right
moment the leaders of the reaction. EAM/ELAS also executed Greeks who worked with the
British in Delphi. One British Liaison Officer noted that 500 Greeks were executed by the EAM
in Attica and Boeotia. Numerous mass graves were dug up by Greek national forces during the
period 1945-1946. Blacklists were drawn up by the EAM where royalists, nationalists, and
wealthy bourgeois were targeted. 1 In December 1944, the OPLA knocked on the doors of its
enemies in Athens and executed them. By December 25, 1944, OPLA executed 13,500 Greeks. 2
Ares Velouchiotes, the leader of the ELAS, ordered the execution of some twenty Trotskyite
leaders. After the withdrawal of German troops in late 1944, the EAM/ELAS continued to
murder Trotskyites, while others were tortured to reveal the names of their colleagues. In a 1946
report to the Central Committee of the Greek Communist Party, Vasilis Bartziotas stated that 600
Trotskyites and anarcho-Marxists were executed by OPLA. In early 1947, the forces under the
command of communist General Vafiadis attacked dozens of villages and executed hundreds of
peasants. The ranks of the communist army were enlarged by forced recruitment. 3
The British also reported that EAM/ELAS forces made use of Greek quislings. Greek
businessmen who cooperated with the Germans and the communist included Xanthopoulos (who
built fortifications on Crete, Olympus, and the Larissa airfield); Vezanis (who built the Megara
airfield for the Germans); and Vasiliadis (who was a dockyard, warehouse, and workshop owner
which worked for the Germans). This information was provided by Greeks who worked for
1
Mazower, Mark. After the War Was Over (Princeton University Press: Princeton NJ 2000) page
156.
2
Gage, Nicholas. Eleni (Ballantine Books 1996)
3
Shrader, Charles R. The Withered Vine: Logistics and the Communist Insurgency in Greece,
1945-1949 (Praeger Publishers: Westport CT 1999) pages 159-200.
Allied Missions. 4 In fact, the KKE initially supported the Italian and the Nazi invaders of Greece
during the period of the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact (1939-1941). The KKE launched
propaganda campaigns against the government and its armed forces during the Nazi-Italian
invasion. In November 1940, KKE leader Zachariadis accused the Greek Army of prosecuting a
fascist and imperialistic war against the Axis forces and requested peaceful intervention by
the USSR. In December 1940, the so-called Old Central Committee of the KKE issued a
manifesto which addressed all the workers and public servants, to all soldiers, sailors and
airmen, to patriot officers, to the mothers, fathers, wives and children of the fighters and the
workers of all neighboring countries. This manifesto denounced the war as a struggle among
imperialist powers. The Central Committee believed that Italy would not attack Greece, due to
the fact that Mussolini had a cooperation agreement with the Soviets. The Manifesto also called
for the Greek Army to seek a peace treaty with Italy. In January 1941, KKE leader Zachariadis
noted in a letter that Metaxas remains the principal enemy of the people and the country. His
overthrowing is in the most immediate and vital interest of our peoplethe peoples and soldiers
of Greece and Italy are not enemies but brothers, and their solidarity will stop the war waged by
capitalist exploiters.5 While Greece was being bombed by the German Luftwaffe, KKE leader
Ioannis Ioannidis recalled a situation where a regional Communist cadre proclaimed The
Germans will not bomb us. The mustached-one (Stalin) will not let them. 6
The involvement of the Soviets and their Eastern European satellites in supporting the
EAM also became very apparent. In December 1945, members of the KKE Central Committee
met with various communist Bulgarian and Yugoslav officers. The Greek Communists were
assured that they could use Albania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia as bases. In December 1947, the
Yugoslavs provided 10,000 troops to assist the Greek Communists. After 1949, the Greek
Communist forces retreated to Romania, the USSR, and Bulgaria. At least 28,000 Greek children
were kidnapped by the communists between 1946 and 1948. They were taken to Albania,
Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Poland for indoctrination. 7 In
July 1944, a Soviet Military Mission was attached to the ELAS forces. The head of the Mission
Lt. Col. Grigorii Popov was welcomed by the Communists. The Soviets were popular with
ELAS. By the late 1940s, the EAM/ELAS became the Greek Democratic Army (GDA). By
1948, the Soviets established supply lines to the GDA through Albania. In July 1948, three
Soviet ships unloaded weapons at the Albanian port of Durazzo. These weapons were destined
for GDA supply depots at Korce. The Soviets even set up a military factory to produce arms for
the GDA. By the end of the late 1940s, the communists provided 1,000 cannons, anti-tank guns,
and antiaircraft guns and over 1 million shells to the GDA. The Soviets recruited 8,000 Greeks in
4
Stevens, John Melior; Montague Woodhouse, Christopher; Wallace, David John; Baerentzen,
Lars. British Reports on Greece 1943-1944 (Museum Tusculanum Press: Copenhagen Denmark
1982) page 53.
5
Communist Party of Greece Accessed From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_Greece#KKE_during_the_Second_World_W
ar
6
Communist Party of Greece Accessed From:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_Greece#1940
7
Courtois, Stephane; Werth, Nicolas; Panne, Jean-Louis; Paczkowski, Andrzej; Bartosek, Karel.
The Black Book of Communism Accessed From:
http://archive.org/details/TheBlackBookofCommunism10
the West to fight with the GDA. 8 GDA forces also acquired abandoned weapons from abandoned
or captured positions formerly held by Greek Nationalist Forces (Army). As the Greek Civil War
progressed, its communist neighbors supplied machine guns, mortars, artillery, heavy mortars,
anti-aircraft and antitank guns, and flamethrowers to the GDA forces. In the winter of 1948, UN
and Greek government observers found Soviet and Eastern European-made weapons in GDA
positions. Previously GDA forces were equipped with captured Italian, British, and Germanmade arms. According to GDA defectors, the Soviet bloc indicated that they would supply the
Greek Communists with tanks, airplanes, artillery, and antiaircraft guns. In 1949, Greek forces
captured GDA weapons during Operation Torch. Captured weapons included artillery guns, antiaircraft weapons, mortars, machine guns, and other firearms. By 1947-1948, the GDA possessed
Skoda 75 mm howitzers and Soviet 120 mm mortars. By 1949, GDA forces retained 15 105 mm
howitzers and 45 75 mm field guns. Albanian, Yugoslav, and Bulgarian vehicles were used to
transport weapons to the GDA. Wounded GDA soldiers and officers were evacuated to Bulgaria,
Albania, and Yugoslavia, and other communist countries and the USSR. 9 By 1950, the Greek
Communists were defeated by the nationalist government.
The Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) was a Maoist Communist group whose leaders
were originally provided military and political training in Red China during the 1960s and 1970s.
The Shining Path sought to create a New Democratic Republic for Peru. Upon seizing
complete power, the Shining Path would nationalize all private enterprise in Peru. All vestiges of
social or economic rank would be eliminated through popular education. Those who are
unable to cope with the new system would be executed. Popular committees and support
bases would be created to consolidate Shining Path power in Peru. The Shining Path grew and
smuggled cocaine. Shining Path leaders noted that much of their cocaine exports to the United
States resulted in the corrosion and demoralization of the Yankee imperialists. The Shining
Path also ensured cocaine growers a disciplined labor force that was tightly controlled. The
Shining Path also designated certain individuals to be allowed to engage in foreign currency
exchanges. Unlike most of the other communist guerrilla groups, the Shining Path appeared to
have no foreign communist supporters either in the Soviet Union, China, or any of their allies. 10
Some Cold War-era communist insurgencies continue to this day. One example is the
rebellion of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Since its inception, FARC
was backed by the communist bloc. FARC also established territorial footholds in Colombia
where it governed in a cruel, totalitarian fashion. Six FARC deserters revealed in August 1987
that various FARC fronts have Cuban advisers attached to them. Other deserters reported that
Cubans also are working as advisers and instructors for the National Liberation Army (ELN) and
are directing its ecologically and economically disastrous sabotage of oil installations. 11 FARC
commanders sent their soldiers to the USSR and Vietnam for military training. Similar to the
Shining Path and other communist movements, FARC utilized cocaine production and
8
Stavrakis, Peter J. Moscow and Greek Communism, 1944-1949 (Cornell University Press
Ithaca NY 1989) page 29.
9
Ibid, pages 159-200.
10
Tarazona-Sevillano, Gabriela. Sendero Luminoso and the Threat of Narcoterrorism (Praeger,
1990)
11
Hudson, Rex. Castros America Department: Coordinating Cubas Support for MarxistLeninist Violence in the Americas Cuban American National Foundation 1988 Accessed From:
http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/rex-hudson.htm
smuggling as tool to raise hard currency and weaken the social fabric of the United States. Coca
revenue flooded the FARCs Financial Commission starting in the 1980s. A military academy
was set up to prepare FARC troops for a command structure and investments were made in the
FARCs command, control, and communications systems. Hence, FARC developed the nucleus
of a future regular army in the event of their complete conquest of Colombia. 12
In the event that various Latin American communist groups seized power in Central and
South America, FARC would receive increased support. Colombia would be surrounded by
communist revolutionary states and overpowered. These revolutions were funded by the
proceeds of drug production and smuggling. Robert Workman reported on an interview
conducted with a US citizen who was kidnapped and held for ransom by the Colombian
communist FARC terrorists. This kidnapped citizen reported that The FARC, M-I9, and Ejercito
Popular de Liberation (EPL) are all really consolidated; they are really one family controlled by
Cuba.... I was in their camp when a Cuban was at a blackboard instructing some guerrillas. One
of the guerrillas asked him: What happens to all of this money? You control the drug-traffic,
you're taking in millions of dollars, and I dont see any money in our camp. They just give us
bare necessities. You get food, clothes, and shells for your rifle and you do not get anything
else. The Cuban adviser's answer was that one half of the money was being sent to El Salvador.
That we are liberating El Salvador. When El Salvador is liberated, then they will turn around
andusing the economies of El Salvador, Nicaragua and Cubafunnel funds into Colombia
and help us, so we can overthrow the government here. 13
The Venezuelan communist dictatorship of Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro funneled
support to the FARC in Colombia. Venezuela maintained a terrorist training camp in cooperation
with Cuban soldiers. FARC guerrillas were enrolled in six week training courses open for 400 to
1,000 participants. FARC trainers at this camp also instructed Venezuelan armed forces reserve
squad leaders in the arts of asymmetric warfare. 14 Cuba continued to serve as a major sponsor
of FARC. In 2002, the former FARC commander Tiro-Fijo admitted that Thanks to Fidel
Castrowe are now a powerful army, not a hit and run band. FARC continued to maintain an
office in Havana Cuba. FARC officers also conferred with Cuban Intelligence (DI) about various
issues and challenges. According to Colombian intelligence, one FARC officer reportedly
receives a $5,000 monthly stipend through the Cuban bank account of a Venezuelan
government office. 15 The Russian Federation through the mafia also provided a submarine
and anti-aircraft missiles to the FARC, while Baathist Socialist Syria shipped captured
American-made Stinger and Redeye SAMs. 16 Venezuela also pledged $300 million to the FARC.
The Venezuelans also proposed oil rations to FARC, which could then be exported for a profit.
12
Cook, Thomas R. The Financial Arm of the FARC Journal of Strategic Security Spring 2011
Accessed From: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1072&context=jss
13
Douglass, Joseph D. Red Cocaine (Clarion House, 1990) page 231.
14
Casto Ocando. Cuba, FARC may be training guerrillas at Venezuelan camp The Miami
Herald October 4, 2008 Accessed From: http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/farc/campvenezuela.htm
15
Fontova, Humberto. The Cuba Embargo Has Actually Worked Like a Charm The Blaze
January 2, 2015 Accessed From: http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/the-cuba-embargo-hasactually-worked-like-a-charm-2/
16
Villa, Robert. IRA/Cuban/Venezuelan Involvement in Colombia Cubanet August 20, 2001
Accessed From: http://www.cubanet.org/htdocs/CNews/y01/ago01/20e4.htm
Chavez also pledged that Venezuelan army officers would supply arms to FARC through arms
dealers and stores of military weapons held in reserve. 17 FARC also engaged in revolutionary
internationalism when it channeled funds to the socialist Rafael Correa, who became president
of Ecuador in 2007.18
Moscows neighbors were subjected to heavy subversion campaign. One well-known
case was Afghanistan. In April 1978, communist elements in the Afghan military seized power
and overthrew the leftwing president Mohammed Daoud. The communist party which infiltrated
the Afghan armed forces and government was the Soviet-funded Peoples Democratic Party of
Afghanistan (PDPA). From the start, the USSR controlled the PDPA through direction and
subsidies. A former Afghan Minister of the Interior noted that PDPA leaders were controlled,
subsidized, paid, and ordered directly by KGB elements of the Soviet Embassy. In 1982,
defecting Soviet KGB major Vladimir Kuzichkin reported that the future PDPA leader and
puppet president Babrak Karmal was a KGB agent for many years. He could be relied upon to
accept our advice. A Ministry of Education senior official recalled this about the pre-1978
communist penetration of the government: They were everywhere. The former governor of
Herat Province G.A. Ayeen noted that the provincial police chief, 10% of teachers, and the
provincial education chief were all communists. A Ministry of Water and Power official reported
that communists made up 10% of his ministry. A former senior Ministry of Planning official
believed that 5% of his ministrys employees were communists and many more secret party
members.19
Upon seizing power, the PDPA and their foreign communist supporters engaged in
ruthless brutality towards the opposition. Apparently, they also retained long-term, genocidal
plans directed at the Afghan populace. In 1979, the Commandant of Pul-i-Charkhi Prison Sayyed
Abdullah noted: One million Afghans only should remain alive. We dont need Islamic groups,
we dont need merchants, we dont need capitalists, we need one million Communists. The others
we dont need, so well get rid of them! 20
After the April 1978 military coup, Soviet and other foreign communist troops poured
into Afghanistan to assist the PDPA regime. By the end of 1979, Afghanistan hosted 3,500 to
4,000 Soviet troops. After December 1979, Soviet troop levels approached the 100,000 mark.
Various bloc and Third World countries dispatched troops to assist the Soviets in their
occupation of Afghanistan. It was reported in 1985 that Cuban, East German, and Bulgarian
troops sent logistics and support units to help Soviet and Afghan forces. It was reported that
Bulgarian forces guarded the Kabul-Jalalabad Road. 21 A Vietnamese Army officer who defected
to Thailand in 1984 informed reporters that he was one of 208 PAVN 22 troops sent to
17
The FARC Files The Economist May 22, 2008 Accessed From:
http://www.economist.com/node/11412645
18
Westerman, Toby. The Web of Terror March 19, 2008 Accessed From:
http://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/i70htWesterman_FARC_Threat_Westerman.html
19
Amstutz, J. Bruce. Afghanistan: The First Five Years of Soviet Occupation (NDU Press, 1986)
Accessed From: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a187795.pdf
20
Cate, Curtis. Afghanistan: The Terrible Decade 1978-1988 (American Foundation for
Resistance International, 1988) pages 13-14.
21
E. European, Cuban Troops Reportedly Aiding Kabul London Press Association June 20,
1985
22
PAVN was the acronym for the Peoples Army of Vietnam.
Afghanistan.23 Defecting engineer Abdur Rahmin reported that Vietnamese troops guarded
Kabul International Airport. 24 Two Ariana Airlines pilots, Abdul Rakhman and Habibollah
Balkhi, claimed that Cuban, Czechoslovak, and South Yemeni troops flew into Afghanistan to
assist the Afghan and Soviets. They also claimed that East German soldiers guarded the Shindad
airbase.25 Two hundred troops from the Peoples Republic of Kampuchea (PRK-Cambodia)
were also allegedly sent to Afghanistan to assist their masters in Moscow. This information was
brought to the attention of the West by a defecting PRK commander/captain named Nong Lan.26
Four hundred troops of the Korean Peoples Army (North Korean army) reportedly fought
alongside Soviet and Afghan forces. 27 A defecting Afghan Army officer noted that Bulgarian
troops were based in southern Mazar-e Sharif to protect the fuel pipeline to Sheberghan. East
German Stasi advisers provided training to the Afghan secret police and intelligence agency,
AGSA/KAM/Khad/WAD. 28 Five thousand Cuban and Czechoslovak pilots also advised the
Afghan air force during this period. Cuban troops were also present in Afghanistan and fought
fiercely against the anti-Soviet rebels. One guerrilla described the Cuban forces as big and
black and shout very loudly when they fight. Unlike the Russians they were not afraid to attack
us in the open.29 A leader of the Islamic Front movement claimed that 10,000 Cuban troops
were airlifted to Afghanistan. The Cubans fought alongside Czechoslovak, Bulgarian, and
Romanian troops. 30 Hazbe Islami Commander Sanagul also noted that 1,200 Cuban paratroopers
were dropped into Qarghaie district in eastern Afghanistan and surrounded 15 villages. Civilians
and suspected rebels were forcibly trapped in their homes and burned alive. 31
The Soviets and the Warsaw Pact also engaged in a training program to nurture a new
generation of Afghan communist leaders and secret agents. In 1981, it was estimated that 5,500
Afghans received military training in the USSR and Eastern Europe. In 1982, a captured Afghan
boy soldier revealed that the USSR trained Afghan children to be spies and saboteurs. Hundreds
23
24
Lyngve, Erland. Defectors Describe Afghanistan Under Soviets United Press International
March 14, 1983
25
Many Workers for Afghan Airline Defect to the West New York Times September 16, 1980
page 3.
26
PRK Defector Tells of Troops Sent to Afghanistan and Chinese Border BBC Summary of
World Broadcasts June 18, 1984
27
Pyongyang Radio Denounces Report on N Korean Troops in Afghanistan BBC Summary of
World Broadcasts May 4, 1987
28
Under the communists, the Afghan secret police was renamed Afghanistan Interests
Safeguarding Administration (AGSA) under Taraki, Workers Intelligence Institute (KAM) under
Amin, the State Information Service (Khad) under Karmal, and the Ministry of State Security
under Najibullah.
29
Nyrop, Richard F. and Seekins, Donald M. Afghanistan Country Study (Foreign Area Studies
The American University 1986) Accessed From:
http://www.gl.iit.edu/govdocs/afghanistan/index.html
30
10,000 Cuban Troops in Afghanistan, Rebels Say Christian Science Monitor September 5,
1980 page 2.
31
Cubans Aided Soviet Executions in Afghanistan, Rebel Chief Says Akron Beacon Journal
May 6, 1985 page 1.
of children took three month military courses at the Soviet base in Samarkand. The boy was
adept at using submachine guns, throwing hand grenades, and creeping up on the enemy. KHAD
agents were sent to the Soviet Union, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria for
training.32 Former prisoners from Pul-e-Charkhi prison reportedly saw Soviet KGB and East
German Stasi personnel present during interrogations. Former prisoners reportedly witnessed
East European observers visiting Pul-e-Charkhi Prison. 33
The communist Afghans and the pro-Soviet Indians sought to potentially dismember
Islamist and anti-communist Pakistan. In 1978, Foreign Minister Hafizullah Amin was recalled
as requesting from Indian Foreign Minister Atar Bihari Vajpayee that let us have a secret pact;
you take one part of Pakistan and we take the other part.
The Soviets also sought to dismember Afghanistan as a means of gaining a strategic
springboard to Red China and Islamist Pakistan. By the fall of 1980, Soviet troops directly took
over the Wakhan Corridor in Afghanistan. It was also reported in 1981 that an Afghan border
area called Morichaq was taken over by the USSR. The Soviets banned Afghans from entering
the area. In December 1981, senior KHAD official Lt General Saddiq Ghulam Miraki defected
and claimed that the Soviets tendered a proposal to Babrak Karmal to annex the eight northern
Afghan provinces. Brezhnev proposed that the northern Afghan provinces would become a
Soviet Republic and the rest of the Afghanistan would become a buffer state. This proposal was
violently opposed by the Khalqi faction at a 1982 PDPA Congress. 34
The first Afghan communist ruler Nur Mohammed Taraki (1978-1979) called for a
jihad against those who he designated as false Muslims or Ikhwanu Shayateen. These false
Muslims opposed the communist takeover of Afghanistan. The Shahs Iran was the target of a
Soviet effort to destabilize that friendly government in the Persian Gulf region. Afghanistan was
a key participant in the Soviet effort to subvert the Shahs Iran. Once Taraki took over
Afghanistan, Soviet-trained agents moved into Iran and infiltrated mosques, schools, Shiite
monasteries, bazaars, and oil fields. By November 1978, there were an estimated 500,000 illegal
Afghan immigrants in Iran. The KGB set up large training camps in Afghanistan for Iranian
terrorists.35 It was estimated that 800 to 1,000 Tudeh Party and Fedayeen Khalq members were
training in Kabul Afghanistan. Soviets of Tadzhik and Uzbek origin and Cuban officers were
involved in the training of these terrorists and Tudeh members. 36
The Soviet-controlled Afghan foreign intelligence (Estekbarat) coordinated activities
among the 500,000 Afghans who resided in Iran. Soviet weapons destined for rebels in Iranian
Baluchistan were transshipped through communist Afghanistan. Two Soviet-controlled camps in
Afghanistan provided communist indoctrination and terrorist training to Pakistani and Iranian
radical leftists. During the anti-Shah demonstrations of 1978, the Iranian authorities arrested
Afghans. In January 1979, 200 armed men crossed the border from Afghanistan, according to
former Iranian Prime Minister Shahpour Bakhtiar. Phillips observed that there was a
32
33
Girardet, Edward. Afghanistan: The Soviet War (Routledge, 2012) page 122.
34
35
Rees, John. How Jimmy Carter Betrayed the Shah The Review of the News February 21,
1979 pages 31-48.
36
Soviets Training Guerillas Voice of Iran September 25, 1981
historically close working relationshipbetween Afghanistans Khalq Party and the pro-Soviet
Iranian Tudeh Party 37
The PDPA also attempted to forge an alliance with Islamist Iran under the common
ideology of anti-Americanism. In January 1980, the puppet government of Babrak Karmal
formulated a letter addressed to Iranian ruler Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The letter noted that
Afghanistan will never allow anybody to use our soil as a base against the Islamic revolution of
Iranand we expect our Iranian brethren to assume a reciprocal stance.38 In March 1980, the
Lebanese publication As-Safir reported Babrak Karmal communicated via the PLO a desire to
become allies with Islamist Iran. 39
Afghanistan under PDPA rule became a major supporter for leftwing Pakistani terrorists,
the PLO, and its splinters. In 1973, Soviet arms were found in the Iraqi Embassy in
Islamabad. These weapons were provided to Baluchi and Pathan separatists in Pakistan. Pakistan
claimed that the Soviets and East Europeans sent weapons to the Baluchi rebels through
Afghanistan before 1976.40 The science and engineering divisions of Kabul University were
transformed into terrorist training centers, attended by mostly ethnic Baluchis from Pakistan,
Iranians of various parties, Palestinians, Syrians, Libyans, and Yemenis. The PLO established an
office in Kabul early on in PDPA rule. In 1981, a PFLP representative pinned a medal on Babrak
Karmal. The Pakistani leftist terrorist group Al-Zulfikar originally maintained its headquarters in
Kabul. They relocated later to New Delhi and Libya. Al-Zulfikar maintained offices in South
Yemen, Afghanistan, and Libya. Al-Zulfikar students were also sent to the USSR for advanced
training.41
Afghan embassies and missions in London, Washington DC, Paris, and New York City
linked up with various subversive groups. KHAD agents based at Afghan Embassies pressured
Afghan refugees in Europe and the United States to refrain from anti-communist activities. These
KHAD agents worked under the guise of refugees and resistance supporters. 42
Meanwhile, the Soviet Union had ambitious plans for their Afghan puppet communists in
Kabul. The PDPA government in Afghanistan positioned itself very firmly in the Soviet military
camp and enthusiastically supported communist expansion in the world. The Afghan PDPA even
volunteered its army for Soviet conquest plans in the Persian Gulf. This was most apparent when
Afghan Minister of Defense Abdul Qader stated in 1982 that: In the future the Afghan Army
will play a significant role like that of the Cuban and Vietnamese Armiesnot far away is the
day when our army will become a strong and energetic army capable of defending peace and
security not only in Afghanistan, but in the region as well. 43 In 1980, Afghan military Brigadier
37
Phillips, James. Afghanistan: The Soviet Quagmire The Heritage Foundation Backgrounder
October 25, 1979 Accessed From: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/1979/10/afghanistanthe-soviet-quagmire
38
Branigin, William. Afghan Leader Claims Common Cause With Iran Washington Post
January 17, 1980 page A20.
39
Karmals approach to PLO over relations with Iran Qatar News Agency April 3, 1980
40
Golan, Galia. The Soviet Union and National Liberation Movements in the Third World
(Unwin Hyman 1988).
41
Klass, Rosanne. Afghanistan: The Great Game Revisited (Freedom House 1990) pages 12-13.
42
Ibid, pages 19-20.
43
Qader noted We do not interfere in the domestic affairs of any other state because any state is
free to handle its own affairs. On the other hand, as a Party and a state we support, and will
continue to support, the worlds liberation movements struggling for just causes. 44 Babrak
Karmal stated in 1981 that Our army will become a strong and energetic army capable of
defending peace and security not only in Afghanistan but in the region as well. 45 Roseanne
Klass believed that the Soviets would use the leftist separatist group Baluchi Peoples Liberation
Front (BPLF) and special units of the Afghan Armed Forces in an invasion plan to occupy the
Persian Gulf. 46
Despite the rhetoric of proletarian internationalism, the Soviets also exploited
occupied Afghanistan in a colonial fashion. In a 1985 speech to the PDPA, President Babrak
Karmal described Afghan gas field workers toiling in abysmal working conditions. These
workers resided in caves and lacked adequate food, clothing, and shoes. They were described as
slave laborers who worked under the guise of volunteers. The exports of this gas were sent to the
Soviet Union. In November 1986, Yuri Ganovsky, head of the Near and Middle East Department
of the Institute of Oriental Studies in the Soviet Academy of Sciences, admitted that the USSR
exploited Afghanistan for its resources: We are paid for everything we are sending to
Afghanistan. All our expenses-I state all twice are paid by AfghanistanThere is a giant gas
field in the northern part of Afghanistan, and by supplying the gas Afghanistan is paying us for
everythingAfghanistan is supplying us not only with gasbut also with fruit, with skins and
agriculture, cotton. Many costs for the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan were also borne by
Soviet allies such as East Germany, Cuba, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania,
Yugoslavia, and since 1985, Poland.47
In 1967, the British withdrew from their colony in southern Yemen and turned over
governing authority to the communists of the National Liberation Front (NLF). By 1969, the
NLF renamed itself the National Front, which by the mid-1970s transformed itself into the
Yemen Socialist Party (YSP). As soon as the British withdrew their administrators and troops,
foreign communist forces from the USSR, Red China, Cuba, and East Germany moved in.
British-held Yemen became the Peoples Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) until 1990,
when the north and south were unified into a single nation.
However, in the interim, South Yemen became a springboard for communist revolution
in the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa. Sometimes South Yemen even projected its
forces outside those two regions in the interests of global communism. South Yemen reportedly
dispatched troops and Peoples Militia forces to Chad, Afghanistan, and Ethiopia to protect
Soviet satellite governments in these countries. 48
South Yemen also engaged in subversion and assassinations in the Arabian Peninsula.
South Yemeni agents were dispatched to foment strikes at the refineries and oilfields in Abadan
Iran in the late 1970s.49 South Yemeni agents reportedly attempted to kill or actually murdered
44
Brig Qader interviewed by Beirut paper As-Safir April 17, 1980

Klass, Rosanne. Afghanistan: The Great Game Revisited (Freedom House 1990) page 272.
46
Ibid, page 271.
47
Ibid.
48
Yemeni Nationalists Quoted on PDRY Troops Abroad MENA December 23, 1980
49
Phillips, James. Afghanistan: The Soviet Quagmire The Heritage Foundation Backgrounder
October 25, 1979 Accessed From: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/1979/10/afghanistanthe-soviet-quagmire
45
10
dissidents and defectors in places such as Cairo and Beirut. The South Yemeni representative in
Bahrain was believed to have been involved in the murder of a right-wing newspaper editor. It
was suspected that the South Yemen representative was involved in the plotting of this murder. 50
One of South Yemens primary targets for revolution was the non-communist regime in
the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR). In 1968, South Yemen provided bases and arms for the
Revolutionary Democratic Party (RDP), whose purpose was to restore the revolution in Sana.
In 1971 and 1972, RDP guerrilla operations in the YAR were buttressed by invading forces from
the South Yemeni armed forces, which were equipped with modern Soviet arms. 51
In early 1976, the National Democratic Front (NDF) was formed as a force allied to
South Yemen. The NDF was formed as a coalition of leftist and communist groups: The RDP
and the Organization of Yemeni Resisters were basically branches of the PDRY regime; the
Popular Democratic Union and the Popular Vanguard Party were the North Yemen branches of
the Arab Bath Socialist Party; and the Labor Party was a North Yemeni group which consisted
of Marxists, ex-Baathists, and remnants of militias who fought with the pro-Soviet, pro-Egypt
republican governments in the YAR. The NDF sought to create a national democratic state,
where the economy was under national and state control. It supported the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Oman (PFLO) in Oman and called for greater cooperation between the YAR and
PDRY. The NDF also supported closer relations between the YAR and the socialist
countries.52
The South Yemeni communists and their allies in Beijing and Moscow also played an
important role in fomenting revolution in the Omani province of Dhofar. In Dhofar, a separatist
communist group called the Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman (PFLO) battled the proBritish and pro-American government of Sultan Qabus. The Soviet Union, Red China, and South
Yemen all provided massive amounts of training, troops, and arms to the PFLO from the 1960s
until well into the 1980s.
A PFLO defector named Salim Amir noted that while he was trained in the USSR, he
learned the art of military science alongside groups from South America, Cambodia, Vietnam,
and Africa. He was told that the Soviet Army would make massive use of tanks, armored
vehicles, and nuclear and biological weapons in its invasion of West Germany and beyond.
Communist successes in France, Italy, West Germany, and Britain were also cited by Soviet
instructors as positive examples of the inevitable victory of global communism. In 1968, a PFLO
recruiting cell was set up in noncommunist forces such as the Trucial Omani Scouts. Two
Trucial Omani Scout corporals were secret PFLO agents. They collected a portion of the
soldiers monthly pay and remitted the money to the PFLO office in Kuwait. They also secretly
recruited Omani soldiers to the PFLO by requesting British officers for leave. The new PFLO
recruits would then secretly disappear from Oman and travel to the USST for training. A PFLO
defector named Ahmed Deblaan traveled to South Yemen in 1968. He then traveled to Karachi
on Middle East Airways. Deblaan then flew to Shanghai in Red China on Pakistan Airways and
then onto Peking on Chinese Airways. These PFLO agents were lodged in luxury hotels and
50
Bidwell, Robin. The Two Yemens (Longman, 1983) page 300.

Ahmed Noman Almadhagi. Yemen and the USA: A Super-Power and a Small-state
Relationship, 1962-1992 (I.B.Tauris, 1996) page 89.
52
Halliday, Fred. Revolution and Foreign Policy: The Case of South Yemen, 1967-1987
(Cambridge University Press, 2002) page 121.
51
11
were shown historical sights. They trained at a school in Red China alongside North Koreans and
Africans. The PFLO agents learned how to use artillery, rockets, and small arms. 53
Soviet journalists visited PFLO held areas beginning in 1969. The Soviets channeled
arms to the PFLO though South Yemen. The Soviet Navy also transported South Yemeni troops
and arms to the Omani border. The Cuban forces in South Yemen trained the PFLO. Qaddafis
Libya and Baathist Iraq also provided the PFLO with weapons.54
According to Omani ruler Sultan Qabus, there were still 200-300 PFLO rebels as of 1976.
The remaining PFLO rebels were based in South Yemen and trained by the USSR, North Korea,
and Cuba. By October 1977, the last PFLO units surrendered to the Sultans forces. After 1977,
the PFLO was based in the PDRY and its leaders were funded and controlled by the South
Yemeni government. 55 As late as 1984, the PFLO was still supported by the Soviets, according to
Omani government sources. 56
In the mid-1960s, the Peoples National Congress (PNC) and its leader Forbes Burnham
took over newly independent Guyana. Burnham was perceived by the United States and Great
Britain as being less leftwing than his rival, the arch-Stalinist Cheddi Jagan of the Peoples
Progressive Party (PPP). Burnham was much more adept at hiding his Marxism-Leninism for the
purpose of the strategic deception of the British and the Americans. Cuban DGI official and
Head of the Americas Department (DA) Manuel Pineiro noted that Burnham embarked on an
anti-imperialist course and shared some of the ideas of Marxism Leninism, but for tactical
reasons is forced to conceal this.57 The major players in the Guyanese Left also launched a
united front. In 1976, the PNC and PPP launched a rapprochement, with the PPP providing
critical support to Burnham. Cuban DA officials also trained cadres of the Working Peoples
Alliance (WPA), which was formed in 1973.58
Burnham supported communist revolutionaries worldwide, including funding for
southern African terrorists since 1970. Starting in 1975, Guyana provided Cuban planes with
landing rights at Timehri airport en route to Africa. In 1976, Cheddi Jagan called upon Burnha m
to invite Cuban troops to Guyana to guard against aggression from Venezuela. Burnham
received aid from Red China, as well.
Despite the Sino-Soviet split, Zhu Liang of the CCP International Liaison Department
and a Soviet delegate attended the Fourth Congress of the PNC in 1981.
In March 1978, Cuban General Senen Casas Regueiro met with Brig. Clarence Price,
chief of staff of the Guyana Defense Force (GDF). Four hundred Cuban troops trained the forces
of the GDF. In February 1983, two unmarked ships docked in Guyana and unloaded artillery and
small arms at the Linden Alumina plant wharf. The GDF had Soviet-made mortars and artillery,
53
Greig, Ian. The Communist Challenge to Africa (Foreign Affairs Publishing Co., 1977) pages
143-147.
54
(Unwin Hyman 1988)
55
Aryeh Yodfat. The Soviet Union and the Arabian Peninsula (RLE Iran A) (Taylor & Francis,
2012) page 43.
56
(Unwin Hyman 1988)
57
Mitrokhin, Vassili and Andrew, Christopher. The World Was Going Our Way (Basic Books,
2005) page 102.
58
Ashby, Timothy. The Bear in the Backyard (Lexington Books, 1987) pages 143-151.
12
armed North Korean-made patrol boats, and Soviet-made Mi-8 helicopters. In 1985, Romania
signed an agreement with Guyana to provide training for GDF pilots. 59
After Burnham passed away in the mid-1980s, his successor Desmond Hoyte and Prime
Minister Hamilton Green embarked on Gorbachev-style reforms which preserved the political
totalitarian rule of the PNC, while opening Guyana up to increased foreign investment. Such
investments by Western multinationals served to increase Guyanas political legitimacy and
opened its economy up to new technologies and sources of funding. Hoyte noted that his
negotiations with IMF did not mean that the PNC softened its position on its Marxism. Instead,
Hoyte remarked that the IMF softened its position vis a vis the PNC. Hoyte noted that he was
undertaking a perestroika in Guyana and that there was no shift in Guyanese policies. Hoyte
further noted that our party is a socialist party as stated in the very first article of the partys
constitution. Hoyte also noted that modification of method was important and was not
abandonment of basic goals.60 In August 1987, President Hoyte noted that the PNC Our
party is a socialist partyIt was clear that because of the nature of our society, socialism in
Guyana would have to follow an innovative course, would have to bear the imprint of an
unmistakable Guyanese image and would have to take account of the distinctive features of our
national life.61 He also noted that socialism in Guyana would have to follow an innovative
course; would have to bear the imprint of an unmistakable Guyanese image; and would have to
take account of the distinctive features of our national life. 62 Prime Minister Green noted in
1989 that Private enterprise doesnt conflict with socialism. We need large inputs of money,
and we hope the IMF program will provide incentives needed to grow. 63
Hoyte noted that the alleged shift of the PNC did not represent a change of
direction, but rather a different style of leadership. The Yearbook of International Communist
Affairs noted it could be argued that cultivating a new image is a tactical device to revive the
economy in preparation for completing a socialist agenda. 64 The Yearbook of International
Communist noted in 1989 that the PNC retained its authoritarian grip on the government and
all repressive sectors of the state. 65
It seemed that the PNC and PPP utilized the strategy of the Leninist ideological retreat
and repositioning to preserve Marxist rule in Guyana. The PPP and PNC still paid ideological
homage to the concept of Marxism-Leninism. In late 1989, Jagan also noted that he and the PPP
stood firmly behind the forces of democracy and renewal in socialist Europe as it has always
stood for democracy in Latin America, Guyana, and other parts of the world. 66 In December
59
Ibid.
Staar, Richard F. Yearbook on International Communist Affairs 1987 (Hoover Institution on
War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University., 1987) pages 85-86.
61
Hoyte Speaks on Ideology at PNC Congress Bridgetown CANA August 11, 1987
62
Hoyte, Desmond. Peoples National Congress, Congress 1987 Address (Government National
Printers 1987), page 11.
63
Information Services on Latin America (ISLA) Volume 38 1989 page 205.
64
Staar, Richard F. Yearbook on International Communism 1986 (Hoover Institution on War,
Revolution and Peace, Stanford University., 1986) pages 101-103.
65
66
Staar, Richard F. Yearbook on International Communist Affairs (Hoover Institution on War,
Revolution and Peace, Stanford University) pages 91-93.
60
13
1989, PPP head Cheddi Jagan noted that the so-called reforms of the PNC, the Soviets, and the
Red Chinese are clearly intended to build a democratic and humane socialism. 67 In late 1989,
Jagan of the PPP noted We are not renouncing our beliefs. Marxism Leninism is a working
class ideologyWe are wedded to liberating the working people.68 In November 1990, Jagan
noted that the PPP would follow a democratic, anti-imperialist and socialist course.69 Yet it
was questionable whether the reforms truly took root in the domestic Guyanese economy. As
of August 1990, the PNC-controlled Guyanese state still owned about 75% of the economy. 70
American capitalists and politicians (even conservatives) were duped into thinking that
freer forms of economy were taking root in Guyana. Other American multinationals saw quick
profits in economic cooperation with the PNC dictatorship. In June 1989, Hoyte toured the
United States as a tool to promote US private investment in Guyana. Hoyte also met with
Secretary of State James Baker, where he noted that the US was willing to aid Guyana. Some
key Democrats pressed the Bush Administration to address totalitarian rule of the PNC and to
link US aid with human rights improvements. 71 However, the Bush Administration ignored the
pleas of this select group of Democrats. In late 1990, Cheddi Jagan espoused the benefits of
foreign investment and private enterprise to foreign journalists and visiting delegations. In the
US, the primary lobbying targets of the PPP were the White House, Congress, and the American
business community. In December 1990, Jagan lobbied the Bush Administration, Congress, the
business community in Miami, and the Republican Partys Elephant Forum. 72
After 1985, the Guyanese continued to maintain close relations with the communist
world. At the Sixth PNC Party Congress of 1985, PNC Secretary General Ranji Chandisingh
noted Guyanas continued progress along the road of socialist restructuringand noted the
importance of strengthening party ties between the PNC, the CPSU, and the communist parties
of Cuba and the other socialist countries.73 Guyana had political and party-to-party exchanges
with Cuba, the USSR, North Korea, and East Germany. In August 1988, the 7th Biennial
Congress of the PNC hosted delegations from the USSR, East Germany, Cuba, Poland, Bulgaria,
Yugoslavia, North Korea, Iraq, the PLO, and the ANC.74 Hoyte, Prime Minister Green, and other
PNC officials visited Cuba and China. The Speaker of the PNC-controlled Guyanese National
Assembly Sase Narain visited Red China in the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre. He
remarked that I believe the Chinese government can make correct judgments of its internal
affairs and do things in line with the interest of the people. In August 1989, the PNC Eight
Biennial Congress hosted 2,000 delegates from North Korea, Romania, Zimbabwe,
67
Marxist Leader Welcomes Changes in East Europe Bridgetown CANA December 8, 1989
69
Ibid.
70
Guyana: CDB Assistance for Electricity Generation System IPS-Inter Press Service August
24, 1990
71
72
73
74
War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University 1987)
68
14
Mozambique, Cuba, East Germany, USSR, Yugoslavia, China, the ANC, SWAPO, and the
PLO.75 By 1990, the communist states cut back their assistance and trade with PNC-ruled
Guyana. No doubt, Moscow and Beijing saw that the West and the Americans were more than
willing to step in and subsidize yet another communist dictatorship through trade and loans.
Throughout the year 1990, the Soviets greatly reduced trade with Guyana. Red China provided
$6 million in credits and two small loans during 1990. In June 1990, the Guyanese and Cubans
had friendly party-to-party meetings, while trade was greatly reduced between those two
nations.76
In August-September 1974, the Ethiopian army overthrew Emperor Haile Selassie and
established a dictatorial junta called the Dergue. By late 1974, communists around Colonel
Mengistu Haile Mariam and General Teferi Bante gained the upper hand and moved Ethiopia
towards an anti-Western and pro-Soviet position. Ethiopia was a long-time target of Soviet
conquest, given its position in the Horn of Africa and proximity to the Red Sea. The Red Sea was
part of the gateway to the Indian Ocean. Soviet control of this area would ultimately provide
Moscow with a chokehold over commerce headed into the Suez Canal. These Soviet efforts
towards the target Ethiopia commenced in the early 1950s.
The Soviet Ambassador Kikanov and his staff of 100 in Addis Ababa toiled feverishly to
subvert the Ethiopian government. The Soviet Embassy in Addis Ababa was also the operational
headquarters of African communist and leftist groups. The Soviet Embassy also controlled the
Czech Legation. Moscow also controlled the East German, Czechoslovak, and other Bloc
nationals who appeared in southeast Africa as commercial travelers. Soviet subversion was
directed at the underpaid Ethiopian civil servants and discontented intellectuals. The Coptic
priests were also the targets of Soviet recruitment. They were in touch with Patriarch Alexei in
the USSR. It should be noted that the Russian Orthodox Church in the Soviet Union was a tool
of the CPSU and the KGB. The Soviet Embassy also supported Prince Ras Seyoum with
Czechoslovak weapons and money. Previously, the opportunistic Prince Ras Seyoum cooperated
with the Italian Fascists to pursue the throne. 77
Colonel Belete of the Ethiopian Democratic Alliance noted that since the early 1970s
the Soviets and their Western dupes had already trained many Ethiopian students and
organized them into what they called the Ethiopian Students Movement. And those students after
having completed their studies abroad including in the United States and Western Europe were
trained in Soviet ideology which they brought with them back to Ethiopia. 78 Paul Henze, who
served at the US Embassy in Addis Ababa from 1968 to 1972, reported that the Soviets
contacted junior officers of the Ethiopian army in the early 1970s. Soviet reports also noted that
in the 1960s-beginning of the 1970s a lot of people came into the (Ethiopian) army convinced of
the necessity of destroying the feudalist-monarchist edifice and these included Marxist units,
among a part of the middle and junior officers and rank and file sergeants. In December 1973,
75

76
War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University 1990) pages 91-93.
77
Addis Ababa Called Focus of Soviet Spy Activities in Southeast Africa Radio Free Europe
Research Eastern Europe August 21, 1952 Accessed From:
http://storage.osaarchivum.org/low/bc/a3/bca3bea7-0a0c-45ea-8baf-282094d9a4a1_l.pdf
78
Col. Belete of Ethiopia The New American November 21, 1988 pages 18-19.
15
the Soviets received intelligence that the Ethiopian army planned to engage in mutiny against
Emperor Haile Selassies government. Western countries were unaware of this attempted
mutiny. Moscow appointed a new ambassador A. Ratanov, to its embassy in Ethiopia. Ratanov
previously served in communist Guinea, which was one of Moscows revolutionary centers in
Africa. 79 The seeds were already being sown for the communist penetration and overthrow of
Emperor Haile Selassie.
Another wedge issue that Moscow and its allies took advantage of in Ethiopia was the
embers of Eritrean secessionism. The Soviets believed that a separate Marxist Eritrean state
would weaken Emperor Selassies pro-Western government and maintain control over strategic
ports on the Red Sea. In 1965, the USSR supplied weapons to the Eritrean secessionists. The
Bulgarians also shipped weapons to the Eritreans in 1967. The Czechoslovaks and Hungarians
also provided weapons to the Eritrean separatists. The Soviets and Chinese agreed to train the
Eritrean forces. In the late 1960s, Cuba and China trained the Eritreans. Since the late 1960s,
some Cuban troops served with the Eritreans. Arab allies of the USSR supplied and trained the
Eritreans. Such countries and movements included Fatah PLO, Egypt, Iraq, South Yemen, Syria,
and Libya. Soviet arms were supplied through these indirect channels. One Eritrean leader
admitted that all Soviet arms were funneled through Syria.
Despite the shift of Ethiopia to communism, Moscow and its allies wanted to keep their
options open in case the Eritrean Marxist forces defeated or severely mauled the Dergues forces.
There were also efforts to forge unity between the Ethiopian communist regime and the Marxist
Eritrean secessionists. After 1977, the Soviets maintained contacts with the EPLF and ELF
through the Italian Communist Party and Cuba. ELF leader Ahmad Nasir traveled to the USSR
in 1978 and 1980. A Soviet publication noted that negotiations between the Ethiopians and the
EPLF were mediated by South Yemen, Cuba, and East Germany in 1978. These negotiations
ultimately failed because of the EPLF insistence on separatist demands. 80
The East Germans and Italian Communist Party sought to negotiate the differences
between the Dergue and the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front (EPLF). During the 1980s,
Ethiopian officials acknowledged contacts with the EPLF. These contacts were under the control
of the Soviet Union, Cuba, and South Yemen. Between September 1982 and April 1986, the
EPLF and Dergue held ten meetings. The Soviets also sought to mediate between the Dergue
and communist insurgents of the EPLF and the Tigre Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF). 81
One of the main foreign policy goals of the Dergue was the imposition of Soviet-style
communism on the African continent. Defecting Ethiopian relief and refugee administration
official Dawit Wolde Giorgis noted that the joint objectives of the USSR and the Mengistu
government are to establish Ethiopia as the first fully communist country in Africa, by
restructuring the social fabric and creating a regimented and controlled society. The second
objective is then to assume leadership of the communist movement in Africa. Giorgis noted that
79
Patman, Robert G. The Soviet Union in the Horn of Africa (Cambridge University Press,
2009) pages 192-193.
80
(Unwin Hyman 1988)
81
Pascoe, William. Time for Action Against Mengistus Ethiopia Heritage Foundation Reports
March 11, 1987
16
The Soviet strategy in Africa is to have a degree of success first in Ethiopia as an example to
the rest.82
Mengistu followed up on these conquest plans with tangible actions. Ethiopian pilots
fought in communist Angola on behalf of the MPLA, while 6,000 Ethiopian troops were
stationed in Frelimo-ruled Mozambique. One Ethiopian defector noted that Mengistu set up a
50,000 man special-forces unit which was under the tutelage of the Soviets. These commandos
were trained to sabotage communications, destroy vital targets, and sow chaos behind enemy
lines. The Soviets also created within Ethiopia a black KGB for use in Ethiopia and all over
Africa. According to various reports its members can marry only other members and any
children are taken from their parents at ten months of age and shipped to the Soviet Union to be
brought up as model agents.83
The Ethiopians also supported leftist and Marxist African terrorists. Mengistu channeled
Soviet funds and weapons to Mugabes ZANU based in Mozambique. 84 Ethiopia also
commenced support for subversive movements in Sudan and Somalia. Ethiopia also offered to
train 10,000 ANC terrorists from South Africa. 85
The rival communists in Somalia were another target of the Dergues aggression. This
stemmed primarily from a major border dispute over the Ogaden Province, which was claimed
by both countries. The Dergue was also displeased over Somalias strategic convergence of
interests with the United States. In 1982 a captured Ethiopian officer Lt. Gezehan Gebre Selassie
noted that said there was a grand Russian plan to topple the present Somali Government and
replace it with a coalition government jointly administered by the Abyssinians and Somalia. 86
The Ethiopians also supported sympathetic secessionist movements in Somalia as part of
its strategy to dismember Somalia and overthrow its communist regime. The pro-Ethiopian, proSoviet Democratic Front for the Salvation of Somalia (DFSS) called for the creation of a
socialist state in Somalia that was aligned with the anti-US bloc. In 1983, the economic program
of the DFSS called for the implementation of a progressive economic policy which will improve
the societys production and is aimed at freeing the national economy from international
capitalism and to reorganize and protect national industries.87 In 1986, the DFSS supported
The establishment of an economic policy free from foreign capitalism. 88
In 1983 the DFSS also supported it is imperative fully to reinstate diplomatic, trade
and cultural relations between Somalia and other countries, which Siyad Barreh 89 has broken.
The countries in question are the Democratic Republic of Libya, Ethiopia, the Republic of Cuba
82
Vallely, Paul How the Wests food aid keeps a tyrant in power The Times (London) October
29, 1986
83
Deressa, Yonas. Rebel aid National Review April 24, 1987 page 26.
84
Bridgland, Fred. Film Brings Ethiopias Red Terror Back Into Focus The Scotsman October
30, 2001 page 10.
85
March 11, 1987
86
Testimony of captured Abyssinian officer about Libyan tanks and troops BBC Summary of
Broadcasts October 9, 1982
87
Programme Adopted at Somali Dissident Groups Congress Radio Halgan March 8, 1983
88
Somali Rebel Fronts Political Programme Radio Halgan April 6, 1986
89
Siyad Barreh was the communist ruler of Somalia who opposed the interests of the Dergue and
the USSR over the disputed Ogaden Province.
17
and other socialist nationsto give strong support for the national rights of the Palestinian
people, who are struggling for their independence and return to their motherland under the
leadership of the PLO, the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian peopleto give full
support to the struggle of the Arab peoples opposed to the Camp David agreement, a deceitful,
imperialist, Zionist and reactionary move opposed to the freedom, progress, democracy and
unity of the Arab people(to) strongly to condemn terrorism by Israel, its expansionist policies
in Palestine, Lebanon, the Golan Heights in Syria, its denial of the rights of Arab people and its
continued support for South Africa and to call on it unconditionally to withdraw from the Arab
territories it captured in the 1967 war. The DFSS also condemned alleged destabilization by
international imperialism and its continued provocations of Libya, South Yemen, Syria and
countries struggling for their independence in southern Africa. The DFSS also supported the
Polisario Front in the Western Sahara, which fought for the creation of a socialist dictatorship.
The DFSS program noted that it also supported the peoples of Africa who are opposed to
imperialist interference and to exploitative economic and social policies in Africa. Specifically,
the DFSS expressed its political solidarity with the ANC and SWAPO. The DFSS also joined
hands with radical Islamists and supported the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran. The DFSS program
also supported the removal of imperialist American military bases in the Indian Ocean and Red
Sea. Lastly, the DFSS naturally aligned itself with the socialist revolution in Ethiopia and the
world communist movement, who were referred to as international movements struggling to
eradicate the exploitation and oppression inherited from the capitalist system. 90 In 1986, the
DFSS also supported the governments of the Arab Jamahiriyah of Libya and Nicaragua and is
opposed to the provocations and aggression of American imperialism. 91
Another pro-Ethiopian rebel movement in Somalia during the 1980s was the Somali
National Movement (SNM). It also aligned itself with anti-US, anti-Western interests. In 1984,
the SNM supported the legitimate struggle of the people of South Africa and Namibia led by the
ANC and SWAPOthe legitimate struggle of the Palestinian people against international
Zionism.92
Mengistu also colluded with Moscow to impose communism in Djibouti through leftwing
subversion. A declassified document which outlined the conversation between Mengistu and
Soviet Ambassador Ratanov stated Mengistu stated that up until recently the government of the
Republic of Djibouti had taken an unfriendly position toward Ethiopia in respect to the SomaliEthiopian conflict, by prohibiting the landing of Ethiopian aircraft in Djibouti, rendering
medical assistance to wounded Somali soldiers, and so forth. Now, however, that the Republic of
Djibouti is suffering a serious economic crisis as a result of Somali aggression and, in
particular, now that Somali saboteurs stopped the Addis Ababa-Djibouti railroad from
operating, its government has expressed a readiness to enter into a trade relationship with
Ethiopia. Mengistu is certain that this positive development in the policy of the Government of
the Republic of Djibouti will gain strength. In Djibouti, Mengistu continued, at the present time
there are three groups of political forces: (1) the party of the Peoples Independence Movement
(Marxist-Leninist), advocating independence and creation of a progressive government; (2) the
party of the National Union for Independence, advocating nationalist positions for
90
Programme Adopted at Somali Dissident Groups Congress Radio Halgan March 8, 1983
Conclusion of Somali Opposition Groups Congress Radio Halgan March 31, 1986
92
Resolutions of Somali National Movements Recent Congress Radio Halgan September 1,
1984
91
18
independence; and (3) the right-wing party of the African Peoples League, advocating, in the
final analysis, if not annexation to Somalia, then at least the establishment of special relations
with it. Ethiopia is supporting the Peoples Independence Movement and advising that party to
unite with the National Union for Independence for the establishment of an independent
existence for the Republic of Djibouti. The Peoples Independence Movement does not exclude
the possibility that in the future that party will be required to resort to armed methods of conflict
against the present government, which is persecuting it. In the opinion of Mengistu, the Soviet
Union and other socialist countries could, with the help of Ethiopia, if necessary, establish
contact with the Peoples Independence Movement and render support to that party. Toward this
end the Soviet Committee for Solidarity of the Countries of Asian and Africa could dispatch a
delegation to Addis-Ababa or receive in Moscow a delegation of that party. It would be
worthwhile to join forces for this purpose, Mengistu stated, in order to prevent the return of
Djibouti to the imperialist bloc. 93
Contrary to the myth that US policy forced Ethiopia into the hands of Moscow, the
Dergue embarked on an anti-American, communist, and pro-Soviet position since its inception in
the summer of 1974. One Soviet writer even implied that the Dergue took over Ethiopia in
August 1974 with external support. In October 1974, the Soviet publication New Times hailed
Mengistu as an influential leader in the Armed Forces Movement. Other Soviet publications
dubbed Mengistu as one of the chief organizers of the anti-monarchial coup and the head of
the revolutionary democratic faction within the Dergue. The Soviets also hailed Mengistus
execution of the first head of the Dergue, General Aman Andom. The Soviets alleged General
Andom came out against the revolution and prepared a state coup of a pro-American
orientation. In early 1975, Mengistu and other Dergue members attended short political courses
in the USSR.94
The Dergue first requested an arms agreement with the Soviets in September 1974. In
December 1976, an arms agreement was concluded between Ethiopia and the USSR. The first
shipment of Soviet-made tanks arrived in Ethiopia in March 1977. Ethiopia signed a Tripartite
Agreement with Libya and South Yemen in 1981.95 Despite the Sino-Soviet split, Red China
also supplied the Dergue with armaments. In 1977, Red China shipped massive amounts of small
arms to the Dergue, but refused to supply heavy weapons. 96 The Soviets assigned General
Vasiliy I. Petrov, Deputy Commander in Chief of Soviet Ground Forces, to coordinate the
93
Memorandum of Conversation between Soviet Ambassador to Ethiopia Ratanov and

Mengistu regarding fighting between Ethiopian and Somali forces and Ethiopias support of the
Peoples Independent Movement in Djibouti September 5, 1977 Accessed From:
http://legacy.wilsoncenter.org/va2/index.cfm?topic_id=1409&fuseaction=home.document&ident
ifier=5034E4A1-96B6-175C92534EC7C711F084&sort=collection&item=Cold%20War%20in%20Africa
94
Patman, Robert G. The Soviet Union in the Horn of Africa (Cambridge University Press,
2009) pages 192-193.
95
March 11, 1987
96
Kissi, Edward. Revolution and Genocide in Ethiopia and Cambodia (Lexington Books, 2006)
pages 148-149.
19
Ethiopian/Cuban counteroffensive against Somalia in the war over the Ogaden Province in 1977
and 1978.97
After 1976/1977, Mengistu also created the Ministry of State and Public Security
(MSPS). It was divided into two departments which dealt with external and internal intelligence.
The MSPS external branch managed two employees in Ethiopian Embassies abroad who
possessed first secretary rank. Ethiopian intelligence officers subverted Djibouti, Kenya, Sudan,
and Egypt under diplomatic cover. In 1984, Sudan expelled Ethiopian diplomats for spying. The
MSPS coordinated intelligence activities with the KGB and East German HVA in London,
Bonn, Rome, and Washington DC. This was spelled out in MSPS-HVA cooperation accords. In
1982, the MSPS sent 200 agents to North Korea for training in sabotage activities. 98
South Yemeni pilots served in Ethiopia in early 1978. 99 Soviet and South Yemeni troops
were also reported by a defector from the Ethiopian martial law administration to be actively
fighting Eritrean rebels. The Soviets manned BM-21 rocket launchers, while two USSR naval
vessels assisted the Ethiopian navy in bombarding Eritrean rebel positions on the coast. South
Yemeni troops manned Soviet-made T-54 tanks in their battle with the Eritrean rebels. 100
By November 1975, the Portuguese government turned control of Angola over to the
Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), despite the Alvor Agreement which
promised free elections in that country. The Portuguese government was under the control of the
Armed Forces Movement (AFM), which was dominated by the Left and the Soviet-controlled
Portuguese Communist Party. Instead of being expelled from NATO, Portugal remained part of
that alliance. Lisbon turned effective control of Angola over to the communist MPLA. In
Angola, the Portuguese leftist military government handed power to the communist MPLA in
1975. Admiral Rosa Coutinho was the last colonial Portuguese high commissioner who
collaborated with the AFM government in Lisbon to bring the MPLA and foreign communist
occupation forces into Angola. He was quoted in an interview with Canadian television as stating
that: I think I fixed the decolonization process in an irreversible way. I knew very well that
elections could not be held in the territory. It would be a fantasy. 101 The MPLA victory was
aided by Portuguese Communists and extreme leftwing elements in the Armed Forces Movement
(AFM) government. Portuguese soldiers also occasionally aided MPLA forces in battles against
the noncommunist leftists of the National FNLA in 1975. Portuguese troops and MPLA armored
units participated in an assault on National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) 102
installations in Luanda. 103
97
March 11, 1987
98
Crozier, Brian. The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire (Forum, 1999) page 318.
99
(Unwin Hyman 1988)
100
Soviets, Yemenis Reported Fighting in Eritrea The Guardian February 2, 1978
101
Amiel, Barbara. Birth of a Soviet Satellite Macleans August 17, 1987 page 9.
102
The FNLA, along with UNITA, were rival leftist movements who vied with the MPLA and
their foreign communist occupation troops to gain control of Angola. They eventually opposed
Marxism-Leninism and the unpopular Cuban, Soviet, and Warsaw Pact advisers and troops in
Angola which aided the MPLA.
103
Greig, Ian. The Communist Challenge to Africa (Foreign Affairs Publishing Co., 1977) page
217.
20
Commencing in the early 1980s, the MPLA recruited a dozen Portuguese commandoes
with the assistance of the Portuguese communist Admiral Rosa Coutinho.104 The contingent of
Portuguese mercenaries grew to 150 to 200 personnel. 105 It was reported in 1984 that the KGB
recruited fifty ex-Portuguese Army senior officers to train SWAPO and MPLA troops in their
battles against UNITA and South African forces. 106 Another report indicated that the MPLA also
recruited 25 Portuguese mercenary troops who specialized in piloting helicopter and jet fighter
planes.107 As of 1987, UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi charged that there were 3,000 members of
the Portuguese Communist Party in Angola who assisted the MPLA. 108 Some Western sources
indicated that the MPLA had Cuban forces fighting and advising the MPLA since the late 1960s.
In the late spring 1975, Cuba sent 230 troops to aid the MPLA. 109
Foreign troops of various communist states occupied Angola and assisted the MPLA and
its armed forces known as the FAPLA. Evelyne Chene of the Times of London reported that
3,000 troops from the Soviet, Union, Portugal, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Romania, Poland, Hungary,
and North Korea assisted the MPLA communists. 110 The Soviets also trained 1,500 Bulgarian
troops in counter-insurgency warfare. They were to be dispatched to Angola to fight against
UNITA forces. 111 Three thousand Peoples Republic of Kampuchea (PRK) and Vietnamese
troops also served in Angola in a training capacity for MPLA troops. 112 In 1984, South African
and Western newspapers reported that 4,000 North Korean troops served in Angola, which
propped up their MPLA. These soldiers were also reported as providing ideological and military
training to the terrorists of the African National Congress (ANC) and SWAPO in a camp located
in the town of Quibaxe. 113
Meanwhile, the Cubans and other Soviet bloc nations exploited Angolan resources and
industries as payment for their internationalist assistance. Such practices rivaled the
Portuguese colonialists of the pre-1975 period. It was reported by Freedom House in 1978 that
Their (the Cubans) occupation policy is similar to that of the Soviets in East Europe after the
liberation: They were dismantling useable industrial installations and transporting them to
Cuba. In 1977, Father de Kinderen reported that Angola had bartered its entire coffee and sugar
104
Amiel, Barbara. Birth of a Soviet Satellite Macleans August 17, 1987 page 9.
De Young, Karen. Angola Gaining in Fight Against UNITA Rebels Washington Post
September 20, 1985 page A1.
106
Ex-Officers Training SWAPO, Luanda Troops Agence France Presse April 6, 1984
107
Reported Recruitment of Portuguese Mercenaries by Angola Johannesburg Home Service
February 11, 1984
108
Jonas Savimbi Denied Portuguese Visa Lisbon Expresso November 1, 1986
109
(Unwin Hyman 1988)
110
Chene, Evelyne. The Outside Forces Propping Up Angola The Times (London) September
20 1985
111
Radio Truth Reports Presence of Bulgarian Force Radio Truth September 12, 1985
112
UNITA Official on SRV-Cambodian Military Presence in Angola Bangkok Post August
17, 1979
113
North Korea Said to Increase its Troops and Military Advisers Associated Press July 10,
1985
105
21
crop to pay for weapons from Cuba and the Soviet Union. 114 It was reported in 1977 that Cubans
operated a system of forced labor on Angolan coffee plantations where workers were shifted
from one place and job to another. 115
The MPLA also provided assistance to various liberation movements in Africa, such
as the ANC and SWAPO. Arnaud de Borchgrave also reported that the Cubans and Portuguese
Communists trained leftist rebels from the Shaba Province in Zaire. These rebels were based in
Angola and staged their attacks from MPLA-held territory.116 The Angolans also served Soviet
interests through joint espionage operations in NATO countries. In 1987, it was reported that
Angolan intelligence (DISA) operated from the Angolan Embassy. The DISA and the KGB
residents in Lisbon engaged in intelligence cooperation. DISA established communications units
in Lisbon equipped with small tape recorders and telex machines. A unit of swallows (women) of
mulatto and black ethnic extraction entrapped Western citizens and elites. These female agents
were trained at special school in Luanda by Soviets who were able to pass themselves off as
Portuguese.117
In the early 1920s, Soviet troops installed a group of revolutionary communists as the
ruling elite in Mongolia. Mongolia immediately became a pliant Soviet ally from the 1920s to
the early 1990s. During World War II, Mongolia provided the Soviet Union 35,000 horses, 2.5
million tugriks118, and 300 kilograms in gold. The Mongolians also financed an armored column
of 53 tanks for Soviet forces during World War II. The Mongolian Herdsman aircraft squadron
fought alongside the Soviet Army. 119 Communist Mongolia declared war on Japan in August
1945, and deployed 80,000 troops to assist the Soviets in their invasion of Manchukuo
(Manchuria).120 The Mongolians also provided the North Koreans and North Vietnamese with
financial aid during their wars of liberation. 121
Since the late 1960s, Chadian leftist, separatist rebels fought against the Westernsupported government. They were backed by Libya and the communist bloc. The rebels were
committed to establishing a democratic, popular and socialist regime and at overthrowing the
usurper clique whom international imperialism has installed in Ndjamena (Chads capital
city).122 During the civil war in Chad, East German troops were reported to have manned
114
The Front-Line States: The Realities in Southern Africa The Heritage Foundation March
26, 1979 Accessed From: http://www.policyarchive.org/handle/10207/bitstreams/9523.pdf
115
Greig, Ian. The Communist Challenge to Africa (Foreign Affairs Publishing Company 1977)
pages 108-109.
116
The Front-Line States: The Realities in Southern Africa The Heritage Foundation March
26, 1979 Accessed From: http://www.policyarchive.org/handle/10207/bitstreams/9523.pdf
117
KGB Trains DISA Agents Bound for Portugal Lisbon Tempo July 30, 1987
118
The domestic Mongolian currency.
119
Mongolia: A Country Study Accessed From:
http://www.marines.mil/Portals/59/Publications/Mongolia%20Study_5.pdf
120
Kotkin, Stephen and Elleman, Bruce A. Mongolia in the Twentieth Century: Landlocked
Cosmopolitan (M.E. Sharpe 1999) page 164.
121
Mongolia: A Country Study Accessed From:
http://www.marines.mil/Portals/59/Publications/Mongolia%20Study_5.pdf
122
Formation by Goukouni Oueddei and Other GUNT Faction Leaders of New Council Radio
Bardai August 13, 1984
22
Soviet-made long-range artillery guns in an assault on Oum-Chalouba in northeastern Chad. 123

Chadian news media reported in 1981 that Soviet and East German advisers served in Chad to
assist the Libyan and Chadian leftist rebel forces in operating Soviet built armaments. 124 North
Korean pilots were reportedly assisting pro-Qaddafi rebels in northern Chad in 1984.125
Starting in 1973, Polisario Front rebels fought against Spanish troops in an effort to
create a separatist leftwing state in the Western Sahara. In 1976, Spain turned the Western
Sahara over to Mauritania and Morocco. Polisario Front troops fought against Mauritania and
Morocco in an effort to impose a leftwing dictatorship in Western Sahara. Various communist
bloc and Arab radical regimes supported the Polisario Front with weapons and training.
The Cubans also provided assistance to the Polisario Front rebels fighting against
Moroccan occupation of the Western Sahara. They provided advisers and troops for the Front to
fight Moroccan garrisons and training officers to serve as battalion leaders in the diplomatic
arena. In 1977, meetings were held in Algiers and Havana to plan the level of military support
provided to the Polisario Front. In 1988, a Cuban military delegation traveled to Tindouf, Algeria
to review the Moroccan armys defensive perimeters and develop tactics for the Polisario Front
in an effort to help them breach the defensive wall that had been constructed by Morocco. Cuban
military advisors conducted simulation exercises for the Polisario Front. Elements of the Cuban
Navy also provided logistical support off the coast of the Spanish Canary Islands for the
Polisario Front.
Since 1976, hundreds of Saharan children were also sent to Cuban education centers to
be indoctrinated in communism in preparation for the eventual liberation of Western
Sahara.126 They were provided with communist indoctrination in Cuba. One such student was
Hamoudi Al Bihi. He was one of hundreds of Saharan students who were indoctrinated in Cuba
in 1989. He noted We were sent to Cuba at a very early age. We were just kids but we were
used as a means to keep our families hostages in Tindouf and prevent them from returning to
MoroccoWe were actually trained to be enrolled in the Polisario militias. These children
were aged 8-10 years old and were trained in Cuban military facilities. Another student named
Hamoudi Al Bihi reported that We were trained to handle both light and heavy weapons. 127
Former Cuban military instructor Dariel Alarcon noted that Sahrawi children, who are sent to
Cuba, followed military training and courses on making explosivesThese children followed
military training and courses on the making of explosivesWe taught children how to make
home-made explosives with such products as sugar, coffee, sulphur, and nitroglycerineseveral
children were killed. Their bodies should still be buried in the island if they were not exhumed.
Former Cuban intelligence officer Juan Vives reported that Children were obliged to work in
123
GDR Technicians Said to help Chad Rebels Daily Telegraph (London) July 9, 1983 pages
5-6.
124
ATP Confirms Presence of USSR, GDR Advisers Agence France Presse March 1, 1981
125
Report Says North Korean Pilots Played Role in Chad Offensive Associated Press June 8,
1984
126
Holley, Robert M. Cuba and the Polisario Front (Moroccan American Center for Policy
August 16, 2005)
http://www.moroccanamericanpolicy.org/upload/documents/14_20061221083312.pdf
127
Ali Haidar. Tindouf: The forgotten Children Deported to Cuba Sahara News May 15, 2013
Accessed From: http://sahara-question.com/en/opinions/tindouf-forgotten-children-deportedcuba
23
the fields in the morning and go to school in the afternoon. Some did not cease to cry, claiming
their parents. It was inhumane. Some arrived so young to Cuba that they hardly remembered
from where they came. And it is very inhumane. 128
The Polisario Front also launched communist-style propaganda campaigns which sought
to portray their forces and provisional government as freedom fighters, while damning Morocco
as oppressive lackeys of imperialism. Former Polisario Front propaganda official and Politburo
member Mhamed Bouh was in charge of protocol in 1989, where he supervised foreign
delegations visits in the Tindouf camps. He also served as an army political commissar. Bouh
noted that the diplomatic campaign generously financed by Libyan and Algerian slush funds to
snatch recognitions of the Sahrawi Republic SADR was a partial failure, since such
recognitions are still very limited geographically. If Algerian and Libyan petrodollars have
pressed on the leaders of some African and Latin American countries to recognize the SADR, the
tactic proved unsuccessful in the Arab world and the Middle East, as well as in the former
communist bloc He also reported that A different scenario was worked out according to each
delegationVisits of military training camps for women were thus planned for communist
delegations while schedules of delegates of humanitarian organizations were limited to meetings
where women and children would talk about their misery and dire living conditions. Delegations
of social democratic obedience would be received by women completely dedicated to voluntary
and social work, while an Iranian delegation would be welcomed by veiled, shy women. Actually,
all these women were the same. They were just acting and changing roles in accordance with the
instructions of the leadershipWe built a sham organization, able to show everyone what they
wanted to see. It was a real moral fraud, but it represented what has become of the
Polisario129
The Polisario Front sold medicines and food donated by the West to markets in Mali,
Mauritania, and Algeria to raise hard currency to purchase weapons and ammunition. The
Polisario Front also used donated food and medicines to enforce totalitarian control in the
Tindouf camps. The Polisario Front even sold donated water to the refugees in the Tindouf
camps. Ghoulam Najem Mouichame, the former representative of the Polisario Front in Bremen,
Germany, observed that Throughout my mission in Germany, I was led to ascertain that a
sizeable amount of all sorts of humanitarian aid sent by the German donors to the populations of
the Tindouf camps was systematically embezzled by members of the Polisario, who proceeded to
sell it in the south of Algeria and the north of Mauritania. The Polisario Front also embezzled
funds provided by the West and humanitarian groups and spent the money on airline tickets for
the Front leadership to travel abroad. The newspaper El Watan reported that noodles and
spaghetti, sent by the Italian government and people, were disposed of through selling in the
Algiers markets-and even on the pavements-for 35 Dinars a pound. On the wrappings of the
products is clearly indicated in Italian and Arabic that these items are donated by the Italian
government and people. Two Australian journalists, Violeta Ayal and Daniel Falshow, told a
128
Sahara issue Sahrawi children inhumanely treated in Cuba, former Cuban official Morocco
Times March 31, 2006 Accessed From:
http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Soc/soc.culture.cuba/2006-04/msg00201.html
129
Abdelhak Kettani. The Polisarios Deception as Revealed by a Former Leader Tindouf.org
January 30, 2013 Accessed From:
http://www.tindouf.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=170:the-polisariosdeception-as-revealed-by-a-former-leader&catid=1&Itemid=19
24
press conference at the United Nations in New York in October 2007 that Slavery is a real
institution in the Tindouf campsOur stupefaction was even greater, since we could never have
imagined this practice could have taken place within the camps, where black people are the
victims. They noted that black families do not have any rights. Enslaved black families were
considered by the Polisario Front as the property of their masters, who pass them on to their
descendants. Worse, slavery is legally regulated and protected by the law. It is not only a social
practice.130
Despite the assertions of left-progressives and the anti-Cold Warriors, Grenada posed
another potential regional threat when it was ruled by the communist New Jewel Movement
(NJM) from 1979 to 1983. It became in a short time another Cuba. The NJM regime also
sought to expand its military power, partially in an effort to export communist revolution in the
small nations of the Caribbean island chain. As early as 1976, the NJM Bureau concluded that
the United States was the No. 1 enemy that will not let us take power without a fight. (We
must) understand what we are up against. 131
Contrary to the notions of the American Left, the United States did not push Grenada
into the arms of the Soviets and Cubans. Instead, the NJM maintained ties to the Soviets,
Cubans, and Marxist Guyanese government in the years before 1979. The Soviets also realized
the strategic importance of Grenada in the whole equation for dominance of the Caribbean
Islands. In August 1969, a Soviet trawler visited Grenada and was docked at St Georges. Crew
members photographed and measured the Calivigny Point peninsula. In 1963, NJM leader
Maurice Bishop traveled to East Germany and Czechoslovakia while attending school in
London. A Cuban DA officer named Oswaldo Cardenas was assigned to work with the NJM
before the 1979 coup. Bishop and other NJM member traveled to Havana and returned back to
Grenada with guerilla warfare manuals and revolutionary literature. Such documents were
confiscated by authorities. Hudson Austin, future commander of the Peoples Revolutionary
Army (PRA) received military training in Cuba and Guyana along with a half a dozen other
Grenadians. Several days before March 1979, black Cuban Directorate of Special Operations
(DOE) commandos were infiltrated into Grenada. A Soviet cruise ship, the Taras Shevchenko,
paid a visit to the port of St Georges on the night before the 1979 coup. Suspiciously, the Taras
Shevchenko remained in port throughout the revolution. Soviet crewmen were observed
monitoring the NJM revolution via hand held radios. They were sighted at Point Salines,
Richmond Hill, and St Georges.132 In 1976, a Grenada-Cuba Association was set up as a Trojan
horse for Havana to be involved in Grenadian politics. The Association dispatched delegations to
Cuba in 1977 and 1978. NJM soldiers were sent to Cuba and Guyana for training prior to the
1979 revolution. Cubans and Guyanese were present during the March 1979 revolution. In April
1979 Cuban ships started to secretly unload weapons for the PRA.133
It appeared that Grenada was tasked to serve as a beachhead for revolution in the
Caribbean. Former Grenadian Ambassador to the Soviet Union W. Richard Jacobs noted in a
130
Humanitarian Aid Freedom For All Accessed From: http://www.freedom-forall.org/refugees/humanitarian-aid.php

131
Sandford, Gregory and Vigilante, Richard. Grenada: The Untold Story (Madison Books,
1984) pages 54-55.
132
133
Sandford, Gregory and Vigilante, Richard. Grenada: The Untold Story (Madison Books,
1984) pages 54-55.
25
July 1983 government report that: Our revolution has to be viewed as a world-wide process
with its original roots in the Great October RevolutionWe have to establish ourselves as the
authority on events in at least the English speaking Caribbean and be the sponsor of
revolutionary activity and progressive developments in this region at least. To the extent that we
can take credit for bringing any other country into the progressive fold, our prestige and
influence would be greatly enhanced.134 In 1980, Maurice Bishop exhorted: By 1981, we will
be able to speak not just of revolutionary Cuba - not just of revolutionary Nicaragua-but also of
revolutionary El Salvador, Revolutionary Guatemala and Honduras! 135
Grenada sought to build an army which was to consist of 6,000 troops and 300 officers as
of 1980. There was a NJM plan from 1983 to 1985 to equip the PRA with 20,000 troops or 20%
of the countrys population. One document noted from an unnamed NJM official that any
excess weaponscould be sent to other countries that were having revolutions. The PRA
possessed 900 British-made Enfield rifles and Chinese-made antitank weapons from Vietnam,
which were then transshipped from Grenada to Guatemala, Lebanon, El Salvador, and Guinea
Bissau. Apparently in April 1979 Cuba provided the PRA with 900 British-made .303 rifles and
350 US-made M-16s.136
The PRA and Grenadian agents intervened in various Caribbean, Latin American, and
African nations. In May 1979, Grenadian troops landed on the island nation of St Vincent to
overthrow its government. 137 Grenada also dispatched 500 troops to fight with SWAPO in
Namibia.138 Grenadian brigadistas also worked in Nicaragua. They were sent in October 1980 to
assist the Sandinistas. Some were killed in counterinsurgency (COIN) operations against Miskito
Indian resisters. 139 On May 24, 1983, Soviet Ambassador Sazhenev told Maurice Bishop that a
Soviet military aircraft carrying 39 paratroopers would be sent to Grenada with Cuban
pilots.140 In October 1980, Grenadian troops assisted the Sandinista Army in crushing the Miskito
Indians and black Creoles on Nicaraguas Atlantic coast. 141 In NJM-ruled Grenada, a Sovietmade AN-2 transport plane was to be used to drop Grenadian paramilitary forces onto the island
nations of St Vincent, St Lucia, Antigua, and Dominica. The St Lucian Ambassador to the OAS
Joseph Edmunds noted that They even had trial landings. It seems to some like a small thing; it
wasnt.142
Despite assertions to the contrary, the airport in Grenada was to be used as an airbase for
Soviet and Cuban military transport aircraft. Grenadian Minister of Mobilization Selwyn
Strachan noted in 1981 that the airport would assist Cuba in ferrying troops to Africa. Strachan
134
Whelan, James Robert and Jaeckle, Franklin A. The Soviet Assault on Americas Southern
Flank (Regnery Gateway, 1988) pages 34-35.
135
Mediagraphy of the Grenada Revolution The Grenada Revolution Online Accessed From:
http://www.thegrenadarevolutiononline.com/mediagraphy.html
136
Central Intelligence Agency. Grenada: A First Look at Mechanisms of Control and Foreign
Involvement August 20, 1984 Accessed From:
http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/89801/DOC_0000696919.pdf
137
Ashby, Timothy. The Bear in the Backyard (Lexington Books, 1987) page 89.
138
Ibid, page 92.
139
Ibid.
140
Ibid, page 100.
141
Brownfeld, Allen. Revolution Lobby (Council for Inter-American Security, 1985) page 64.
142
Geyer, Georgie Ann. Guerrilla Prince (Garrett County Press 2011) page 355.
26
also noted that the airports strategic location to important sea and oil transport routes would
enhance Soviet power. A captured notebook of a Soviet-trained NJM official contained an entry
from October 1983 which asserted that the Party wanted Bishop to sign for the Airport to be a
Military Base and he did do that.143 NJM Central Committee member Liam James wrote in his
notebook in early 1980 that: The Revo has been able to crush counter-revolution
internationally, airport will be used for Cuban and Soviet military. 144 The NJM leader and
Prime Minister Maurice Bishop himself admitted in an interview with Newsweek in March 31,
1980 that: Suppose theres a war next door, where the forces of Fascism are about to take
control, and the Trinidadians need assistanceWhy should we oppose anybody passing through
Grenada to assist them?145 At an April 1982 meeting between Grenadians and Cubans, General
Arnaldo Ochoa spoke about the use of the Grenadian airport by Cubans in case of emergency.
In a discussion with Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko in April 1983, Prime Minister Bishop
emphasized that the airport would be a strategic factor, which is well known. 146
In 1957, the leftwing, anti-colonial leader Kwame Nkrumah became the President of
Ghana. By 1958, Nkrumah started to acquire dictatorial powers and moved Ghana in a
communist direction. This was done on Soviet advice. Soviet Professor Potekhin addressed the
seminar and ordered that Nkrumah establish a one-party state. With the assistance of the Soviets,
Nkrumah set up a school for political indoctrination. 147 One Ghanaian newspaper Ghana
Evening News called Nkrumah the Lenin of Africa. 148 Nkrumahs advisers included former
leftwing Labor Party MP Geoffrey Bing and the former South African Senator Hymie Basner. 149
Nkrumahs government also developed a pervasive secret police and intelligence
presence in the United States and within Ghana itself. Ghanaian secret police also monitored the
OAU conference masqueraded as OAU stenographers and clerks and was able to gain valuable
intelligence on Africas leaders. 150 One Ghanaian agent named Sidi-Ali was sent to New York to
spy on Ghanaian students in the United States. He was trained at institutes in Ghana and the
USSR. Other exiles such as Thomas Oduro Kwarten gave an interview to CBS and was
prompted threatened by officials and agents of the Ghanaian government. 151
143
Department of Defense. Grenada: A Preliminary Report page 30 Accessed From:

http://www.dod.gov/pubs/foi/International_security_affairs/grenada/153.pdf
144
Behind the Scenes in Marxist Grenada Heritage Foundation Report November 21, 1984
Accessed From: http://s3.amazonaws.com/thf_media/1984/pdf/bg393.pdf
145
Sylvester, Michael. Grenada: Perspectives of a New Communist State Accessed From:
http://www.thegrenadarevolutiononline.com/perspectives.html
146
Pryor, Frederic L. Revolutionary Grenada: A Study in Political Economy (Praeger, 1986)
pages 95-98.
147
Metrowich, F.R. Africa and Communism (Voortrekkerpers, 1967) Accessed From:
http://www.rhodesia.nl/Africa%20and%20Communism.pdf
148
Ibid.
149
Ibid.
150
Ibid.
151
Ghana students in United States oppose U.S. aid to Nkrumah Staff conferences of the
Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal
Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate August 29, 1963, and
January 11, 1964 Accessed From: http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008514977
27
The Soviets, Chinese, and East Germans funneled military and intelligence assistance to
Ghana during Nkrumahs rule. In 1961 Ghana bought 8 IL-18s transport planes from the USSR.
In 1963, the Soviets provided a Mi-4 helicopter to Ghana. In 1965, President Nkrumah
concluded an agreement to acquire weapons from the USSR for the Ghana Presidential Guard.
The weapons that were acquired included 24 light artillery guns, 21 medium mortars, 15
antiaircraft guns, 20 heavy machine guns, and massive quantities of ammunition. In 1964,
Soviet naval crews manned 4 patrol boats based at Tema. These vessels transported weapons to
leftist movements in Ghanas neighbors. In early 1966, the Soviet Union started construction of a
new air base near Tamale in northern Ghana. 152 The Presidential Guard had Soviet, Chinese, and
Egyptian communist advisers serving under Soviet Colonel Zanlegu. This force was equipped
with modern arms imported into the ports of Tema, Takaradia, and Elma. 153
In 1963 it was estimated that over $30.9 million was spent on weapons such as barracks
for troops, radios for the military, armored cars, escort vessels, minesweepers, small destroyers,
military airports and bases, and increases in the number of troops for engineer, parachute,
infantry, and armored units. Ghanaian troops were also stationed in Cienfuegos in Cuba and were
commanded by Soviet officers. They were part of an international brigade in Cuba. Over 800 of
them were executed for mutiny. Chinese and Algerian soldiers also were part of this brigade. 154
China provided a loan for Ghana to build 2 arms factories in October 1962. In 1964, the
Chinese and Ghanaians concluded a secret agreement for the provision of arms and trainers for
African leftist terrorists. In late 1964, 5 Chinese PLA guerrilla warfare experts arrived at Half
Assini Training Camp. Other Chinese instructors trained guerrillas at Obenimase Camp in
Ashanti Region. Ghanaians also attended a three-month espionage training course in China.
Students who attended these courses were from Zaire, Niger, Cameroon, Fernando Po, Tanzania,
Zambia, Rwanda, Togo, Cote dIvoire, Upper Volta, Gabon, Nigeria, and Guinea. 155
Soviet advisers worked at secret Bureau of African Affairs camps, at the Kwame
Nkrumah Ideological Institute in Winneba, and at numerous other security, intelligence, and
military bases. At least 76 Ghanaian army officers attended military schools in the Soviet Union.
Ghana Young Pioneers were trained at Komsomol schools in the Soviet Union. 156
Like other major communist powers, East Germany sought to exploit Kwame Nkrumah's
radicalism to erode Western influence in Ghana and to use Ghana as a base for spreading
communism throughout West Africa. The relationship between the two countries began in 1964,
when the Bureau of African Affairs approached the East German Trade Mission in Accra and
requested intelligence training for its staff. Subsequently, two East German officers who worked
for the Ministry of State Security traveled to Ghana to assess the bureau's training requirements.
152
Ghana: A Country Study Accessed From: http://www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r5344.html

153
154
155
156
Ibid.
28
One of these officers remained in Ghana and inaugurated a Secret Service and Intelligence
Work course for seven members of the Bureau of African Affairs. This officer later offered an
Intelligence Work Under Diplomatic Cover course for six other people who worked in the
Bureau of African Affairs and who eventually were assigned to posts in Zambia, Nigeria, Kenya,
Sierra Leone, Tanzania, and Burundi. East Germany also helped the Ghanaian government to
create an intelligence section in the Bureau of African Affairs. These activities ended after
Nkrumahs downfall. 157 It was estimated that $480,000 was allocated to the Bureau of African
Affairs. At least $448,000 was used for propaganda and underground work. 158
The Kwame Nkrumah Institute of Economics and Political Science was created in
February 1961. President Nkrumah noted to a meeting of the African Affairs Committee in
November 1959 that he wanted to convert the Winneba Party College to an institute where
selected dedicated members of all nationalist movements of Africa could be rigidly indoctrinated
in the realism of African unity The purpose of the Kwame Nkrumah Institute of Economics
and Political Science was to propagate firmly the essence of African unity in Ghana and
throughout the Continent of Africa. According to a high level official of the Ghanaian security
and intelligence services, the Russian security experts suggested to the ex-President, who
readily accepted, that future recruitment into the security services should be through the
Ideological Institute at Winneba. It was in response to this that the head of the Special Branch
sent a number of Special Branch officers to the Ideological Institute. The Institute was to train
African Freedom Fighters in the spirit of the African revolution, pan-Africanism and socialism in
such a way that when they return to their homelands they will be better armed to take an active
part in liberating their countries from imperialism; colonialism and neocolonialism; to train
Africans in the spirit of pan-Africanism as a method of making progress toward African Union;
to train Africans in the spirit of Nkrumaism which is considered like the development of Marxism
in conditions and circumstances peculiar to Africa, and to train Africans in the spirit of
proletarian internationalism. The curriculum of the Institute was to provide ideological
education to activists and Freedom Fighters of the African struggle against imperialism,
colonialism and neocolonialism. The Director of the Institute, Kodwo Addison noted in
October 1965 that Just as Leninism is Marxism in the period of imperialism, Nkrumaism is
Marxism in the era of neo-colonialism. We embrace scientific socialism and fully agree with
Marxism-Leninism. From 1962 to 1964, Somalis, Kenyans, Nigerians, Senegalese, and
Malawians were enrolled at the Institute. 159 In 1963, Nkrumah provided funds totaling 18,000
rands to Dahomey trade unionists to overthrow that countrys pro-Western government. Ghana
also supported leftwing terrorists in Congo and an anti-Federal movement in Nigeria. The Upper
157

158
159
Kwame Nkrumahs Ideological Institute-Winneba Ghana Accessed From:
http://www.niica.on.ca/ghana/Ideology.aspx
29
Volta president accused Nkrumah of personally appointing a new president of Upper Volta to
succeed the pro-Western leader Yameogo.160
In 1979 and again in 1981, Flight Lt. Jerry Rawlings took over as a military dictator in
Ghana. He formed a junta called the Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC). He shifted
Ghana to the Left, especially in foreign policy. Foreign communist advisers and troops trickled
into Ghana under Rawlings tenure. Under the Rawlings regime, an unknown number of Libyan
military personnel participated in Ghanaian military exercises as observers. Also, an unknown
number of Libyan soldiers received jungle warfare training in Ghana. In May 1983, the Ghanaian
government received artillery pieces and ammunition from Libya. 161
In late 1986, Ghana's National Secretariat of Committees for the Defense of the
Revolution signed an agreement with the Soviet Union for assistance in training national cadres.
At the end of the 1980s, an unknown number of Ghanaian intelligence and army commandos
received training in the Soviet Union. 162 There was also a proposal by the Rawlings regime to
invite 5,000 Cuban troops into Ghana in 1984. Special Presidential Adviser Kodjo Tsikata and
communist elements within the ruling PNDC supported the stationing of these Cuban troops in
the town of Tamale, which is 250 miles north of Accra. When Cuban Foreign Minister Isidoro
Malmierca conferred with Rawlings and the Upper Volta dictator Capt. Thomas Sankara, the
topic of stationing Cuban troops in Ghana was brought up. It was reported that fifty Cuban
soldiers were already transported to Ghana. 163 Another report indicated that East German,
Bulgarian, and Libyan troops and advisers were aiding Ghanas police, army, and security
services.164
By the late 1970s, Albert Rene took over the Seychelles from the pro-Western
government. Rene aligned himself with the international Left many years before he took power.
While in London, Rene attended meetings of the British Communist Party and took part in
communist-inspired street demonstrations in the early 1960s. During academic recesses Rene
visited the USSR. Rene admitted in 1979 that he was one of the thousands who marched in
London in 1962 shouting Kennedy No! Castro Si! Cuba Si!
When Albert Rene took over the Seychelles, he had 60 militants in a task force when he
took over the country. Some of the members of the task force comprised of police officers. Rene
was also assisted by 200 militant workers and Tanzanian troops. Rene declared a non-Marxist
form of Socialism and nonalignment in foreign policy. Rene was received by Red Chinese
dictator and Communist Party General Secretary Hua Kuo-feng in Beijing who declared that
Beijing was squarely behind Seychelles just proposal for turning the Indian Ocean into a zone
of peace. In 1981, in the wake of an attempted coup, the Soviets sent a Kana class guided
missile cruiser and Krivak-2 class guided missile frigate to visit the Seychelles. Moscow
dispatched naval vessels again in 1982 and 1983. The Seychelles voted for all Soviet positions in
160

161
162
163
Ghana Contemplates Inviting 5,000 Cuban Troops Agence France Presse April 16, 1984
164
Zecchini, Laurent. Ghana in Need of More Rawlings Inspiration Manchester Guardian
Weekly June 29, 1986 page 13.
30
the General Assembly of the UN between 1977 and 1983. By late 1984, East German, North
Korean, and Libyan personnel joined the Soviets and Cubans in the Seychelles. The East
Germans set up 3 radar units to monitor the American base at Diego Garcia. The North Koreans
dispatched 60 soldiers to bolster the 120 Tanzanian troops in the Seychelles. The Libyans
handled weapons deliveries from the Soviet bloc. In 1987, there were reports of Soviet troops
establishing a secret base on the Seychelles. It was reported that 50 Soviet naval infantry troops
landed in the Seychelles from the Soviet amphibious landing ship Ivan Rogov in 1986. 165
By 1974-1975 Sao Tome e Principe became independent of Portugal and was turned over
to the communists of the Movement for the Liberation of Sao Tome e Principe (MLSTP). The
AFM of Portugal handed power over to the MLSTP whose leaders were trained in East Germany
or took orders from the USSR. Others were members of the Portuguese Communist Party. On
Soviet orders 1,000-1,500 Angolan troops were sent under the command of Cuban and Soviet
officers.166 The Soviets were present in that country as military advisers and allegedly were
proposing to set up a submarine base in that country. 167 An East German Stasi officer also
provided assistance to the Sao Tome and Principe government. 168 Another source spoke of this
base being protected by 2,000 Soviet and Cuban troops and SA-5 SAMs from the USSR. 169
Julius Nyerere and his successor Ali Hassan Mwinyi ruled in an authoritarian socialist
fashion in Tanzania. While they were socialist ideologues, Nyerere and Mwinyi also followed
the classic Leninist model of using capitalists to build communism. For example, President
Mwinyi noted in 1986 regarding IMF aid: I would like to assure the people that the agreement
did not make us change the principles of our policy of socialism and self-reliance. We have all
the time been basing our approach on the task of broadening and strengthening our policy of
socialism and self-reliance and doing everything to ensure that government directives fall within
these principles.170 In 1984, President Nyerere noted at a press conference at the State House
that Tanzania would continue to invite foreign firms to invest in the country under mutual
agreements which did not violate the principles of either party. Nyerere also admitted that I
have been advised that it is correct to use capitalists to develop socialism. The 1967 Arusha
Declaration, which was written by President Nyerere, welcomed foreign investment in Socialist
Tanzania. For example, the General Tire Company formed a joint venture with the Tanzanian
government in 1967.171 Tanzania received between 1970 and 1989 $9.5 billion from Western
nations. One observer noted that For a government which for 20 years crooned socialism and
self-reliance, Nyereres achievement was quite the opposite: dependence on imports and
165
Crozier, Brian. The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire (Forum, 1999) pages 338-343.
Ibid, pages 344-345.
167
Tome Denies Reports on Soviet Military Bases Japan Economic Newswire December 18,
1984
168
Pinto da Costa Wins Third Term as President Associated Press September 30, 1985
169
African Island Nation Said to Host Soviet Garrison Christian Science Monitor March 21,
1984 page 2.
170
Tanzania: President Mwinyi Says Bitter IMF Pill Had To Be Swallowed Dar es Salaam
home service December 2, 1986
171
Ndembwike, John. Life in Tanzania Today and Since the Sixties (Intercontinental Books,
2010) pages 149-150.
166
31
foreign aid. But Nyerere operated an efficient public relations machinery abroad, through which
he projected himself as a respectable figure in international circles. 172
Tanzania also established close military ties with various communist and radical states.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Tanzania imported weapons from Red China. The Tanzanian
Peoples Defense Forces (TPDF) maintained an active duty force which consisted of 17,000
troops. The air force retained 30 Chinese-made copies of Soviet MIG fighter planes. In 1978,
Tanzania received 24 Soviet MIGs and an unknown amount of Soviet-made SAMs. As of 1977,
Tanzania hosted 1,000 Chinese economic technicians. Cuba and the USSR stationed 365
technicians, while Libya supplied weapons. 173
The Tanzanians also sought to influence the international Left into believing that Nyerere
was a unique, progressive African socialist. The Tanzanian intelligence services only encouraged
these types of active measures programs. One Tanzanian secret police official Marcelino Komba
worked on the Tanzanian-funded British publication Africa as a senior writer. The Tanzanian
secret police also paid writers to compose letters to the editor full of praise for the Nyerere
regime.174
Tanzania also assisted its revolutionary Marxist comrades in other African countries. For
example, in December 1986, Bank of Tanzania officials were forced to release foreign currency
coming into government coffers, including IMF funds, to support the FRELIMO regime in its
battles against the RENAMO forces. 175 In 1987, Tanzanian troops totaling 3,000 entered
Mozambique to assist Frelimo. 176
In 1975, the Portuguese leftist Armed Forces Movement (AFM) turned over Mozambique
to the communist terrorists of Frelimo, to the detriment of other nationalist or pro-independence
movements. Frelimo fought against the Portuguese and their African allies since the early 1960s.
It adopted a full-fledged Marxist-Leninist ideology by the late 1960s. After the transition of
power to Frelimo in 1975, Mozambique became another tool in Moscows efforts to dominate
southern Africa and its resource rich nations and strategic maritime location. It was also
significant that the Portuguese leftist military government that replaced the fascistic Caetano
regime actively assisted in transferring power to Frelimo, at the expense of other nationalist
groups. The Armed Forces Movement (AFM) government in Lisbon ordered troops to assume
defensive operations and AFM committees in Mozambique independent of the national
government refused to replenish weapons supplies. The Frelimo security forces created a plan in
Tanzania to arrest anti-Frelimo opposition. Portugal reportedly aided the Frelimo in the arrest of
the oppositionists. Students were enticed to return from foreign countries and were arrested at the
airports. Portuguese secret police arrested anti-Frelimo activists at the countrys airports and
handed them over to Frelimo. Nationalists of the PCN were sent to Frelimo military barracks. 177
172
Ibid.
The Front Line States Heritage Foundation March 26, 1979 Accessed From:
http://www.policyarchive.org/handle/10207/bitstreams/9523.pdf
174
Mwijage, Ludovick S. The Dark Side of Nyereres Legacy (The Adelphi Press London 1994)
Accessed From: http://www.zanzinet.org/files/darkside.txt
175
Ayittey, George. Restoring Africas Free Market Tradition Heritage Foundation Reports
July 6, 1988
176
Cabrita, Joao. Mozambique: The Tortuous Road to Democracy (Palgrave, 2000)
177
Cabrita, Joao. Mozambique: The Tortuous Road to Democracy (Palgrave, 2000) pages 66-67,
72, 80-84, 88-89, 92, 110, 111, 127, 128, 131, 181, 235, 248, 249, 250, 256, 267, 271.
173
32
Soviet designs for the domination of southern Africa were confirmed by high level
Frelimo defectors. Former Mozambican secret police director (SNASP) director Jorge da Costa
stated in 1982 that Southern Africa with its mineral and agricultural wealth is of strategic
importance to them (the Soviets) and is their (the Soviets) main target. In the 21st century food
will be the biggest problem. 178
Jorge Da Costa revealed that the Soviet bloc exploited Mozambique under the guise of
lending assistance to that communist country. He noted The Russians control the fishing
industry. They have a navy at Zavola down the coast from Beira. They are mining our minerals
and exploiting our coal resources and we were getting precious little in return. The Cubans were
helping us with the sugar industry and the coffee. We never saw it. The Romanians were
farming rice and cotton for export. The East Germans were into everything: maize, wheat, cattle,
textiles, and citrus. We saw little of it. The Bulgarians supplied all the machinery and the
technical staff. And from the agreements I could see that they had such a hold on us that they
would never let go. 179
The Soviets and their allies sent troops to assist Frelimo. Before 1975, the Soviets
dispatched journalists to liberated zones within Mozambique. 180 Perhaps some of these
journalists were undercover KGB or GRU agents dispatched to assist Frelimo in the field.
Former SNASP director Jorge Da Costa also alleged that the Soviets maintained 4,000 to 5,000
troops in Mozambique that were commanded by KGB General Anatoli Shadrin. One thousand
East German troops were commanded by General Gunter Weinrich of the Stasi. Colonel Haras
Sanchez of the Cuban DGI commanded 4,000 troops in Mozambique. Mugabes Zimbabwe sent
a large contingent of troops to Mozambique. 181 The Frelimo armed forces were trained by
Qaddafis Libya and were sent back to Mozambique in 1984. In 1987, 3,000 Tanzanian troops
entered Mozambique to assist Frelimo. 182
The Mozambicans sought to dominate southern Africa through the training of various
communist terrorist movements who were actively fighting noncommunist governments in the
region. At a Frelimo Party Congress (1977) Machel himself promised that Mozambique would
become a revolutionary base from which anti-communist white ruled governments would be
overthrown.183 Mozambique provided military training and political indoctrination to leftist
revolutionaries in FRELIMO camps from Malawi, Swaziland, and Kenya. In December 1978,
Machel integrated FRELIMO regular troops and Mugabes Patriotic Front communist rebels into
aggressive actions against Salisbury. In January 1979, Mozambique invaded Rhodesia with 200
regular soldiers. Mugabes Patriotic Front used Mozambican transport, logistics, and armories.
Modern Soviet radio communications equipment provided Mugabes Patriotic Front with a direct
link to their three Mozambican sector headquarters and the main command headquarters in
178
Mozambican Tells Why He Defected Daily Dispatch June 8, 1982

Da Costa File Scope February 11, 1983 page 32.
180
(Unwin Hyman 1988)
181
Da Costa File Scope February 11, 1983 page 40.
182
183
Ottaway, David. Mozambique to Be Revolutionary Base Washington Post February 8,
1977 page A14.
179
33
Maputo.184 A Soviet-trained Frelimo commander Daniel Caetano defected and revealed that
Machel was turning Mozambique into a springboard for the communist conquest of Africa. He
stated that Machel has turned the country into a training base for blacks from African moderate
states, labeled by him as puppets of the capitalist and imperialist forces. Caetano revealed that
leftists from Zimbabwe, Malawi, Swaziland, and Kenya trained at these camps. He stated:
There they receive military training and communist indoctrination and are later sent back to
their countries to foment uprisings against their governments. Caetano also claimed that the
planes, tanks, and missiles were to be used by Frelimo and allied communists for the conquest of
Africa: Machels ambition is to turn the African continent into a continent of communist states
against the will of the peoples of those countries.185
Despite the strong trade links between communist Mozambique and apartheid South
Africa, the Frelimo regime backed ANC terrorists who were fighting to impose a pro-Moscow
regime in Pretoria. Mozambique pledged support for the ANC, SWAPO, and the Patriotic Front
in Rhodesia as a means of attacking Western imperialism. 186
Former SNASP director Jorge Da Costa also revealed the existence of Plan TV, which
was formulated by a committee which consisted of Frelimo, South African ANC, and South
African Communist Party (SACP) officials, including Oliver Tambo, Minister of Security
Jacinto Veloso, and SACP General Secretary Joe Slovo. Plan TV was to establish a concrete
and efficient plan of logistic, military, and security support to the ANC, in order to improve their
offensive capability against the minority and racist regime of the Republic of South Africa. It
was noted that Frelimo supplied the ANC with 2,000 FN FAL rifles captured from Rhodesian
troops during the 1970s. ANC agents were also trained to pose as Mozambican miners who were
employed under contract in South African mines. Da Costa noted We had used this technique
beforeThe miners would be spies and informers and not actual terrorists. It was a very
successful way of moving large numbers of ANC without arousing suspicion. A private
Mozambican international road transport firm was established in 1982 to transport arms and
munitions to the ANC in South Africa. 187
The ANC used Mozambique as a transit point to infiltrate its troops into South Africa.
The Mozambican Border Guard Troops (TGF), trained by Soviet Spetsnaz, was used in this
effort and had an operational radius of 50 km beyond the border with South Africa. ANC agents
were disguised as migrant workers and infiltrated into South Africa using false passports issued
by Frelimo. SACP official Joe Slovo was used to coordinate arms shipments from the USSR to
Maputo.188
Despite the Nkomati Accords, Frelimo still backed the ANC terrorists. As a signatory to
the Nkomati Accords, Mozambique promised to halt its assistance to the ANC in return for the
cessation of Pretorias support for the anti-communist forces fighting against Frelimo. The
Nkomati Accords served as a sort of Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which provided a respite for the
Frelimo regime to recuperate from its losses in the war against the South African-backed anticommunist resistance forces. In June 1984, Samora Machel commented that the Nkomati Accord
184
Kiracofe, Clifford A. The Communist Takeover of Mozambique: An Overview Journal of

Social, Political, and Economic Studies pages 115-128.
185
Resistance Leader Hits Out To The Point January 19, 1979
186
187
Da Costa File Scope February 18, 1983 pages 29-33.
188
34
constitutes a victory for the Mozambican people and their socialist policy of peace. This accord
has opened prospects for peace and good neighborliness in this region of our continent. With the
Incomati accord armed banditry saw the drying up of the source which used to feed it. The time
has come for us to deliver the final blow. 189
In April 1984, Machel commented that with the Nkomati Accord the Mozambique
people, from the Rovuma river to the Maputo river, celebrated a victory of our socialist policy of
peace. Incomati closes yet another chapter of the war of aggression against our independence
and our revolution. Incomati marked the failure and non-viability of the imperialist-sponsored
regional strategy, which was aimed at the destruction of the independent and progressive states
of southern AfricaBy negotiating with the Mozambique Government, South Africa recognized
the lack of any political opposition in our country. By signing the Incomati accord, the main
objective-the destruction of our state-failed. By signing the Incomati accord, we confirmed the
reason for our fight-peace. It is only with peace that we can carry out our objective of defending
the fatherland, over-coming backwardness and building socialism. While it is true that Incomati
has crowned our socialist policy of peace, it is also true that we came out of this fight with deep
woundsThe accord defends revolution. It defends the cause of socialism. It defends the most
profound and legitimate aspirations of peoples. It is an act of solidarity with all other initiatives
which are taking place throughout the world with the same objective of peace. 190
In March 1984, Machel noted at a rally Listen to this properly. This is the meaning of
the pact (with South Africa). It is to defend our independence; it is to defend our state and our
sovereignty, it is to defend our territorial integrity. With it, we are finally defending every
Mozambique national. There is something else. The pact defends the revolution, it defends our
social transformation, it defends our economic transformation, it defends scientific and technical
transformation. We did not sign an accord with the South African party. We did not sign an
accord of political and ideological coexistence. Do you understand?...Greater vigilance is
required because we have signed the accord. It is not an ideological accordSouth Africa has
its political and economic system, which is different from ours. They are antagonistic systems.
Do you understand? We are for socialism, we are against capitalism. Do you understand?
Therefore, it is not a question of coexistence of systems in the ideological sense. 191
As I previously mentioned, Frelimo still backed the ANC terrorists. In 1986, South
African Army reported that the banned South African Communist Party and second in
command of the military wing of the ANC, Joe Slovo, had been seen on a number of occasions in
Maputo since the beginning of the year after his arrival in that country from Angola. It is
suspected that Slovo serves as the link between ANC training camps in Angola and transit camps
in Mozambique. During his visits to Mozambique Slovo is accompanied by Mozambican
government officials, and he travels on a British passport. During August he was in East
Germany where a second ANC training base was opened at Telton near Berlin. This base, which
complements one that has been in existence for some time, is manned by Soviet instructorsa
number of terrorists who had been arrested in the past in connection with terrorist attacks in the
eastern Transvaal had infiltrated the country through Mozambique. Two were caught trying to
cross the border into Mozambique. Since the beginning of the year about 23 terrorist attacks
189
President of Mozambiques Independence Anniversary Speech Maputo home service June

27, 1984
190
Mozambique President on Accord with S Africa Maputo home service April 10, 1984
191
Machels 17th March Maputo Rally Speech Maputo home service March 20, 1984
35
have been perpetrated in South Africa from Mozambique. 192 South African General Magnus
Malan noted in 1987 that ANC terrorists who were based in Mozambique admitted the Nkomati
Accord provided them with freedom of movement, because of restrictions placed on South Africa
by the accord. They felt themselves free to carry out acts of terrorism without any fear. With the
support provided by the Frelimo government, the ANC has expanded its activities in
Mozambique.193
In July 1989, 200 ANC terrorists arrived in Mozambique. These ANC soldiers were
flown into Beira Mozambique in Soviet-made Antelope transport aircraft. These ANC terrorists
were met by members of SNASP. 194
Attempts were made to manipulate the Malawian youth and armed forces through
cultural and cooperation exchanges. Mozambique opened their borders to leftist anti-Banda
guerrillas coming from Tanzania. 195 Frelimo also colluded with Zimbabwe, Cuba, and the Soviet
Union in drawing up invasion plans to assist Malawian leftists in liberating their country.
According to captured documents, former Mozambican communist president Samora Machel
recommended that: Mozambique and Zimbabwe must bring into being a new force in Malawi.
Banda is worn out. We must not allow South Africa to set the course in Malawi. We must not
allow the English, Americans and the Federal Republic of Germany to choose the Malawi
leaders. The Army knows how these things must be doneWe can also organize a Mala wi
Liberation Front, equip ourselves and infiltrate into Malawi in order to destroy the bandits (the
Renamo guerrillas) who are there. We may also define the targets for such a front for the
liberation of Malawi.
Machel laid out this aggressive plan against Malawi to a secret conference with the
Zimbabwean Minister of State Security Emmerson Munangagwa, the Zimbabwean Ambassador
to Mozambique H.E. Mvundura, Minister of Defense E.R. Kadungure, Zimbabwean Army
Commander General Rex Nhongo, Air Marshal J. Tungamirai, Maj-Gen Maseko, and Lt-Col
Shumba, of the Zimbabwe National Army. Soviet and Cuban officials were also present at this
planning meeting. Machel noted that military men had to place all available means in
Zambezia, the province bordering Malawi We have some special forces for special
operations, we have about 41 MiG-21 (jet fighters)the victory is being plannedit demands
cold-bloodedness. The transport of troops and equipment of Zambezia and Tete provinces was
discussed, with the vital role Zimbabwes transport facilities would play here, and the
organization of medical services and food.
Machel also stated that The military action had to be backed by political action and
Malawi had to be persuaded to allow Zimbabwean troops to cross its territory into Zambezia.
The people of Malawi had to be convinced the Mozambique and Zimbabwe forces were in
solidarity with them and not their government. Mr. Munangagwa told President Machel, there
is a force ready to go, but that there were preparations that had to be jointly made with
192
South African Allegations of ANC-Mozambique Links Johannesburg home service October

10, 1986
193
S Africas Malan Warns Mozambique About Accommodation of Terrorists Johannesburg
television October 16, 1987
194
Mozambique accused of violating Nkomati accords by accommodating ANC terrorists
Radio Truth July 3, 1989
195
36
Zimbabwe. Problems with the transport of military hardware from Mozambique harbours were
also raised196
There was evidence that Frelimo backed other communist movements outside the region
of southern Africa, no doubt as part of their contribution to the internationalist struggle. In
1988, Renamo forces captured an East German freighter that previously transported weapons to
Kenya for Yusuf Hassans Kenyan guerrilla organization. Reportedly, Kenyan leftist guerrillas
were being supported by Mozambique. 197 Former FP-25 extreme left guerrilla Valentim de
Sousa commanded another 1,700 troops in Mozambique. Frelimo also funded FP-25 terrorist
activities in Portugal. 198
Clearly, Moscow delegated to its Third World satrapies the task of direct troop
intervention in conflicts in other developing nations. Afghanistan, Vietnam, Cuba, Grenada,
Angola, Mozambique, and Eastern European nations were all tasked for the duty of proletarian
internationalism during the Cold War. These activities continued even in the post-Cold War
period, where communism in the USSR and its anti-Americanism was supposedly dissolved.
Despite the omissions in mainline historical textbooks, many Rothbardian/Ron Paul libertarians,
and the American left, the Soviets and their allies based and stationed troops all over the world.
This essay, along with other books that the author has written, unequivocally proves the assertion
made in the preceding sentence. It is in Americas long term interests to continue to provide
assistance to governments that are beleaguered by Moscow and Beijing-supported insurgents and
client states. If such assistance is terminated, one could easily face a domino effect where the
United States is surrounded by hostile nations and global supply chains are impaired. However,
the first step is to realize that the Cold War did not truly endMoscow just assumed another
face in late 1991.
196
South Africa Says Zimbabwe and Mozambique Planned to Attack Malawi South African
Press Association November 6, 1986
197
Mozambican rebels claim capture of sailors from GDR vessel West German Press Agency
September 2, 1988
198

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1

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South African Allegations of ANC-Mozambique Links Johannesburg home service October

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